


Salvage

by kaasknot



Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Angst, Babe whump, Captain America voice: ‘language!’, Casual dehumanization, Caught in the Act, Freud (he’s his own content warning), Gene whump, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Implied webgott, Implied winnix, M/M, Medical Bullshittery, Mostly Canon Compliant, Period typical homophobia (in fact that’s the entire plot), Post-Haguenau
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-02
Updated: 2019-12-02
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:21:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21643237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaasknot/pseuds/kaasknot
Summary: Salvage \ˈsalvij\ (n): 1. A soldier accused of homosexual behavior that is judged fit for reclamation. 2. Something worthy of saving.
Relationships: Babe Heffron/Eugene Roe
Comments: 38
Kudos: 100





	Salvage

**Author's Note:**

> So I finally picked up _Coming Out Under Fire_, and this is the result. Frantic screencaps turned into rabid speculation turned into... plot. It started out with a <strike>kiss</strike> bit of light reading, how did it end up like this?? Blame lies at the feet of my nemesis, trill, who made me watch BoB in the first place.
> 
> No offense meant to the real men whose lives BoB is based on.

Easy Company were all sitting in the enlisted canteen in Mourmelon, trying to fill in the gaps left by too many missing comrades, when the MPs came in. There were two of them, grim and faceless behind their black armbands. Johnny Martin saw them first, or maybe Malarkey--the both of them were too accustomed to scanning for danger to go off their guard, even in the comparative safety of the rear. They fell silent, and like a wave, the rest of the men followed suit, turning in their seats to see what the fuss was about. 

The MPs marched up to the largest table. “Are Technician Eugene Roe and Private Edward Heffron present?”

Johnny knew better than to look their way, but not everyone was as smart as him. Every head in hearing distance turned on a swivel to look at Babe and Gene, sitting next to each other with a couple beers and a pair of shocked expressions. The MPs singled them out pretty quickly, so Johnny stood up to draw their attention back to him. “Why you wanna know?”

“Command wants to speak with them.”

“Regarding what?”

The one on the right pursed his lips, and Johnny knew he was skirting close to obstruction, but he could give a shit. They hadn’t survived the Bois Jacques by giving up their own without a fight.

“They have been reported for sodomy and sexual perversion.”

The hush that fell was profound.

Babe had been good about prying Gene out of his shell. The entire shit-stained road up to Rachamps had dragged everyone to the breaking point, but Gene had as much of a hand in keeping the Company together as Lip did, and Babe had kept Gene together. Johnny had actually seen him smile the other day. He’d started joining the men in the canteen, usually at Babe’s side, instead of lurking by himself in the corner. They were good men and good soldiers. Johnny didn’t like to think of what could have happened in the past three months without them.

Gene was sheet white, now. Babe was gaping like a three-day-old fish.

“You’re shitting me,” Johnny said.

“No, Sergeant, we are not. Technician Roe, Private Heffron, stand immediately. This is not a judicial matter--” the darkening of the MP’s expression indicated his disapproval of that fact, “but if you resist, we _will_ arrest you.”

Babe and Gene glanced at each other, a speaking look that all buddies developed, then pushed back their chairs and stood. The room was starting to liven up, men pulling out of their shock to start moving and talking.

“Who reported them?” Johnny demanded, before someone else said something and he had to do damage control.

“Private Allen Vest.”

Johnny shared a glance of his own with Malarkey and Talbert. Vest had always been tender about being a mail clerk instead of a “proper” paratrooper, and it had only gotten worse after Haguenau. He’d never had beef with Babe or Gene before, though.

The MPs were already herding them toward the door. The lack of handcuffs was probably a good sign, but “sodomy” and “the Army” were a bad mix.

“Hold on, you can’t just take them,” Johnny said. “Where’s your fucking proof!”

“Martin,” Malarkey muttered.

One of the MPs turned around. “You do not require proof, Sergeant. That is a matter for the 506th Infantry Regiment Psychiatric Board.” The _drop it, or else_ echoed in the silence.

Johnny looked to Gene and Babe again. The latter was shaking his head, like he couldn’t believe what was happening, but the former--Gene looked like he was going to his execution. It looked like a guilty conscience, and Johnny wished he could unthink it as soon as it came to mind. Jesus Christ. He’d thought he knew every queer in Easy, knew and ignored so long as they kept to themselves, but _Doc Roe_?

“Look after my beer for me, would you, Sarge?” Babe called out, his eyes wide in his shell-shocked face.

“Drink it yourself, Heffron,” Johnny shot back rotely.

Gene said nothing. Then the MPs ushered them out, and the door closed behind them.

Silence fell like a crystal vase.

“What the _fuck_,” Liebgott said, shattering it. “What the _actual fuck_\--”

“No _way_ Babe’s a queer--”

“Since when did Vest have a grudge against them?”

“--doesn’t make any sense--”

“He had a girlfriend, he told me about her!”

“--traded me for an eight-pager last week!”

“Yeah, well, now it looks like he’s gonna get a section eight, too!”

“You shut your goddamn mouth, Hashey--”

“You know, Doc Roe did always strike me as a little… you know, _girly_...”

A piercing whistle cut through the din. Tab pulled his fingers out of his mouth. “Everyone sit the fuck down and shut the fuck up,” he snapped.

Everyone did.

“Finish your beers, go back to barracks, and let the senior NCOs handle this. That is an order.”

There was some grumbling, but Tab just gave them the steely eye he’d been practicing since he made sergeant back in Normandy. He wasn’t quite Lip, but he was better than a hole in the head. A _lot_ better.

One by one, the men left the canteen, until it was just Johnny, Tab, Malark, Shifty, Bull, and Grant. They could bring in the others in a few, have a proper situation room meeting, but for now, they just stared at each other over the wreckage of the evening. Jesus, if Doc Roe could be accused of being a queer, any of them could be.

“The fuck do we do now?” Grant asked, and Johnny wished he knew.

* * *

Joe Liebgott found Vest first, unloading one of the trucks in the mail transport motor pool. “Think you’re a real hot-shot, don’t you, Vest?” he snarled, slamming him back against the tailgate, letters and packages scattering.

“What are you--”

“Couldn’t prove yourself man enough at Haguenau? Had to take Babe out, too, huh? Had to take out our fucking _medic_?”

“Get--get off me!”

Something dark and bitter surged up in Joe’s chest, something ugly, something afraid, and he bared his teeth to keep it locked tight. “Little queer like you, too much of a fucking pansy to pick up a rifle without losing your shit, had to point fingers at _real_ soldiers--”

Webster came running up a moment later. “Jesus, Liebgott, let him go!”

“Fuck you, Web, you heard them! Reported by Private! Allen! Vest!” He punctuated each word by slamming Vest back against the tailgate. If his hands hadn’t been so tightly wrapped around Vest’s lapels, Joe might have wrapped them around his skinny chickenshit neck instead.

“So you’re going to kill him and get a dishonorable discharge? That’s productive!”

McClung came up next, then Ramirez. Almost all of what was left of 2nd Platoon, minus the replacements, ready for goddamn duty, sir.

“What, you want to leave a shitheel like this to tattle on people he doesn’t like?” Joe almost shouted. “Who’s next, you don’t tip Vesty-westy enough for handling your mail, so he reports you to the general for antisocial behavior?”

“I didn’t lie!” Vest shouted, sounding more desperate than spiteful.

“The fuck you didn’t!” Joe roared.

Web’s hand came down over Joe’s chest, hot and strong, pushing him back, prying him off the fuckfaced informer cowering against the mail truck in front of him.

“Calm down, Joe,” he said, quietly, and Joe hated how much hearing his name in David fucking Webster’s hoighty-toighty voice made him do just that. “We need answers. We can’t kill him.” _Yet_, Joe chose to hear unspoken.

Joe shrugged him off. “Fine. Ask him _nicely_. Fuck.” He backed down.

Web didn’t seem inclined to ask anything, though, staring at Joe with this weird, intent expression, so McClung stepped in.

“What do you mean, you didn’t lie?”

“I didn’t!” Vest almost stumbled over his words with how fast he was trying to get them out. “It was the night of the phoney second patrol, I was unloading the night’s shipment and there was a whole big box of medical supplies for the Doc, so I went to go find him.” His face screwed up. “He was fucking Babe on the bunk in the back of the infirmary.”

“You take that _back_!” Joe burst out. “Babe Heffron ain’t a fucking fairy!”

“I saw what I saw!” 

“Hey!” A voice cracked through the tense air. “What’s going on here?”

They all turned to see Malarkey coming between the trucks, his boots squelching in the mud. He looked them over, then his attention fell on Vest, and his expression hardened. “What are you saying now?”

“It’s not a lie, I’m not making it up!” Vest was almost crying, now, the pathetic little shit. “I told Lieutenant Shames because that’s what we’re supposed to do, I didn’t want to rat on my buddies, but they’re queers and that’s what we’re supposed to _do_!”

All the fight seemed to leave Malarkey. His shoulders sagged, and he looked sixty, not twenty-four.

“But everyone’s acting like it was the wrong thing, Captain Speirs was so mad I thought he was going to kill me, and now _you’re_ mad, and I’m sorry I even opened my mouth, okay!”

“You better be,” Ramirez spat. “Babe Heffron’s a better soldier than you ever will be.”

“No,” Malarkey said tiredly. “Regulations are pretty clear on the subject of queers. If Vest is right in what he saw, then he had a duty to report it.”

“But Malarkey, it’s _Babe_,” McClung said. He gave an incredulous laugh. “He can’t be a queer, he held the line in Bastogne, same as the rest of us.”

“It’s in the hands of the shrinks, now. They’re trained how to recognize this stuff.” Malarkey pointed back to the barracks. “Get the fuck out of here, and stop impeding the mail. If Babe or Gene are queer we’ll find out soon enough.”

Joe dug in his heels, splitting his glare between Vest and Malarkey and warring between his lingering ugly rage and the pull of a direct order. A hand grabbed the back of his collar--fucking Webster, _again_\--and dragged him away.

Joe let him for a few steps, because he knew otherwise he’d never move, and then Malark would be forced to penalize him for insubordination, but there was only so much manhandling he could tolerate. “Get the fuck off me,” he snapped, brushing Webster aside.

Christ, if the brass got it in their heads that a clutch of undiscovered queers was malingering around Easy Company--

“What are you so afraid of?” Webster demanded.

Joe wheeled around and slammed him against the side of the nearest truck. “I am not _afraid_, you limp-dicked motherfucker--”

“You are,” Webster said, his hands coming down over Joe’s, tight and strong and warm, and a bolt of raw lust rammed down through Joe’s body, followed immediately by a sick flush of cold fear.

“You’re so afraid, but you keep shouting and hoping no one will look past it.”

Joe felt his chin start to wobble. “Go fuck yourself, Webster,” he snarled, ripped his hands loose, and stalked off.

* * *

Babe paced around his postage stamp cell. Door, desk, chair, bed, crapper. The walls were institutional white, the paint chipping off the hasty cinderblock construction. The docs didn’t like it when he called it a cell--they preferred “quarters,” like this was some kind of officers’ barracks--but Babe had been raised to call a spade a spade. He was dressed in white cotton pajamas and he was locked in a _cell_, awaiting judgment.

He sat on the hard bed with its scratchy sheets and tried not to imagine Gene sitting on one just like it.

The future wasn’t looking too good. On the one hand, if they were both discharged, then at least it’d be together. Babe recoiled at the thought of leaving Easy, and having “homosexual” branded across his discharge papers would make coming home an ugly prospect, but if he was with Gene then he could probably endure it.

Babe put his head in his hands and tried to ignore the churning in his stomach. He didn’t know what the fuck he wanted.

The door to Babe’s cell opened, and a cloud of whisky fumes wafted in. Captain Nixon swayed in after. Babe shot to his feet. He may have been out of uniform, and Captain Nixon may have been in disgrace with the higher-ups, but an officer was an officer.

“Yeah, knock that off,” Captain Nixon said, waving sloppily at Babe bracing to attention. “At ease.” He poured himself into the single, solitary chair, and Babe sat back down on the bed.

Captain Nixon pulled out his flask, took a deep pull, then paid an inordinate amount of attention to screwing the cap back on. He didn’t say anything. Babe felt himself ratcheting tighter with every passing second. He waited for Captain Nixon to start talking, but he’d moved to polishing his flask on his sleeve, and Babe decided to pull the bandaid off himself. 

“Permission to speak, sir?”

Captain Nixon looked at him in utter bafflement, before it seemed to click and he gave a strange, bitter smile. “Yeah, go for it. No need to stand on formality, here.”

“Yeah, okay,” Babe said, unconvinced. “Why are you here, sir?”

Captain Nixon suddenly looked queasy. He reached for his flask and took another pull. Then took a deep breath. “Division,” he said deliberately, “wants me to interrogate you on your sexual history, to see if any of your past partners--aside from Doc Roe, of course--are in the US Army and if so, to obtain their names.” He took in Babe’s expression and smiled again, that same bitter, vicious curl of the lips. “They want a witch hunt, you see.”

Babe clenched his jaw so tight his teeth creaked. “With respect sir, go fuck yourself.”

Captain Nixon let out a surprised bark of laughter. “Gladly,” he said, which didn’t make any kind of sense. “I have to make the show of it, unfortunately. Pro forma attempt at interrogation, subject was uncooperative, no intelligence was obtained, etcetera etcetera.”

Whatever Babe’s expression was, it softened Captain Nixon’s manner. He dropped the smirk and ran a hand through his hair. “I’m not gonna interrogate you, Heffron. Division can go fuck themselves. So to speak.”

That didn’t make any kind of sense. Babe had spent the past two days getting poked and prodded at by doctors, and none of them had seemed to mind asking Babe invasive questions. “Why not?”

Captain Nixon tapped the edge of his flask against the table. He let the silence grow heavy and expectant, _again_, before he spoke. “Because I get up from the other side of the bed, too.” He looked up at Babe. “There, now you have leverage against me. Tell any one of those shrinks out there that Captain Nixon is a friend of Dorothy, and the pressure will be off you and Roe like _that_.” He snapped his fingers, and it was so loud in the small room that Babe jumped despite himself.

“Why are you telling me this?”

Captain Nixon snorted. “Who the fuck knows. Solidarity. Because it’s a bullshit regulation.” He drained his flask and gave it a considering look. “Maybe I just _really_ want to go home, and I’m hoping you’ll rat me out.”

They sat in silence for a while after that, Babe working through the bomb Captain Nixon had dropped, and Captain Nixon… staring out the barred window, settling into a drunken stupor, by all appearances.

It was a hell of a way to learn that Gene and Babe weren’t alone.

Finally, curiosity and aching loneliness drew Babe out. Captain Nixon, at least, was probably a sympathetic ear. “Sir, have you… have you spoken with Gene, yet?”

Captain Nixon roused himself with a grunt. “Yeah. Yes, I just talked with him, actually.”

“How’s he doing?” Babe tried to keep his voice from wavering, but he didn’t quite manage it. He missed Gene like he’d lost his leg, and he didn’t say that cheaply.

Captain Nixon gave him a sad sort of smile. “The docs have got the bit between their teeth with him. They’ve already decided what he is, and anything he says just confirms it.”

“That’s not--”

“Fair? No, it’s not.” Captain Nixon tucked his flask away. “He’s holding up as well as can be expected. He always was the strongest of us, not even Bastogne could break him. He’ll make it through this, too.”

“He had _me_ in Bastogne,” Babe said, and he sounded so much like his sisters when they got petulant that he winced.

Captain Nixon clapped him on the shoulder, a little too gently for comradely encouragement. “He’s got me and Major Winters in his corner,” he said, and that implication knocked Babe flat on his ass. He looked up at Captain Nixon with sudden, awful hope.

“If there’s anything we can do for him, Babe, we’ll do it. I swear.”

“Yes, sir,” Babe said. It was all he _could_ say.

“Well!” Captain Nixon cracked his palms down over his thighs. “That concludes this interrogation, Private Heffron! Thank you for your lack of cooperation.” He stood up, listed sharply to the side before correcting himself, then knocked on the door for the orderly to open it and let him out.

Babe stared at the door for a long time after he left. 

* * *

Major Richard Winters  
2nd Battalion, 506th PIR  
101st Airborne, XVIII Airborne Corps  
Mourmelon-le-Grande  
Memo: Recommendations for treatment of Technician Eugene Roe 

March 1, 1945

Major Winters:

I’ve included a copy of the assessment of Technician Roe I intend to file with the Army Board of Psychiatry. It stands as my official diagnosis and recommended treatment.

> Psychiatric evaluation, patient E. G. R., February 27 & 28, 1945.  
Lead psychiatrist: Dr. Leonard Meadowsweet
> 
> Notes: Patient appears withdrawn, fearful. He rarely meets my gaze, though he occasionally tries to brace himself upright in a more authoritative posture before succumbing to passivity. Preliminary emotional assessment seems to be deep shame and guilt, as well as the expected homosexual anxiety. 
> 
> Results for the physical exam are inconclusive. The patient’s gag reflex is nil, however the examiners could find little sign of feminine body conformation, short of a slender build exacerbated by malnutrition. His hip-to-waist ratio is well above female standards, his height is two inches above male average, and his voice is surprisingly deep and even for a man of his build and proclivities. The proctological exam further did not indicate a patulous rectum.
> 
> Despite this, the patient readily admits his homosexuality. He claims he’s never felt attraction to women, and related the story of his first kiss, age 15, that he shared with a local girl and ended without escalation because it “felt fake.” He refused to speak further on the topic of his sexual partners, even patient E. J. H., with whom he was caught in the sexual act.
> 
> His position in the Paratroop Infantry is one of medic, the only forward combat role short of chaplain that doesn’t require actual fighting. The nurturing required of the position perhaps appeals to his inverted male/female interests. He nevertheless appears to have fulfilled this role to an admirable degree; his service record prior to this incident is spotless, and his devotion to the welfare of the men under his care--in a platonic, rather than perverted fashion--is remarkable.
> 
> Family history: only son of a widow, with two younger sisters. They were raised by their mother, their grandmother, and a handful of aunts. In accordance with Freud’s theories, it appears he failed to separate his self-identity from his mother and instead remained in the immature state, exacerbated by the overwhelming female presence in his childhood. He dropped out of school during the Depression to work as a machinery oiler, then as a machinist, where he undoubtedly spent time in the company of men, but when asked if he loved his mother, his answer was a vehement, almost angry affirmative--the most animated he became throughout the entire interview, short of when I asked questions about his lover.
> 
> A transcription of the latter conversation follows, to the best of my recollection:
>
>> Dr. Meadowsweet: Have you ever been an active partner in oral sex?
>> 
>> E. G. R.: I don’t see how that’s any of your business.
>> 
>> Dr. M: Your results on the gag reflex test indicate you are accustomed to restraining it.
>> 
>> E.G.R.: [patient remains silent]
>> 
>> Dr. M: Did you fellate Private [Redacted]?
>> 
>> E. G. R.: Jesus Christ!
>> 
>> Dr. M: Answer the question.
>> 
>> E. G. R.: I absolutely will not!
>> 
>> Dr. M: If you don’t answer I will write that you did.
>> 
>> E. G. R.: You can write whatever you goddamn want, I’m not answering!
> 
> Similar remarks occurred when I tried to establish if he was the passive partner in anal sex. Private Allen Vest’s testimony asserts he saw E. G. R. as the dominant partner, but that stands at odds with my assessment of E. G. R.’s character; I had hoped for him to be more forthcoming. His unusual aggression in this area suggests he overcompensates during the sexual act to make up for his effeminacy in other areas. Either way, this and the nature of his responses are in keeping with the “superiority” component of the homosexual personality type.
> 
> It is my conclusion that E. G. R. is a “true” or “confirmed” homosexual, matching the trifecta of fearfulness, effeminacy, and superiority sufficient for a diagnosis of sexual psychopath. As he does not appear violent, and as E. J. H.’s testimony does not indicate he was forced, I cannot recommend a court-martial, though there is more than enough evidence for an undesirable discharge. Given the patient’s remorse and deep shame, however, and the repentant tenor of some of his remarks, I do think reclamation is possible.
> 
> Official recommendation: undesirable discharge in accordance with Section Eight of Army Regulation 615-360, OR three weeks’ treatment under my supervision, whereupon his condition may be reassessed. Given the patient’s otherwise exemplary record, and the pressing need for manpower in the 506th PIR, I strongly recommend the latter.

Be advised that I have not yet submitted this diagnosis. If you wish me to replace it with that of psychoneurosis for immediate honorable medical discharge, inform me as soon as possible. I leave the most suitable course of action to your judgment.

Signed,

Dr. Leonard R. Meadowsweet

* * *

“Not too much now,” the XO of 1st Battalion chuckled as Lewis Nixon poured him another glass of brandy. “I’ve got that disposition board tomorrow.”

Lewis made a face. “Sounds awful. What for?”

“Oh, come on, Lew! They're your own men!”

“Right! That.” Lewis made a show of “remembering.” Like he could have ever fucking forgotten. He took a deep, restorative swig of his own brandy. “You have my deepest sympathies.”

The XO of 1st Battalion was a florid mountain of a man by the name of Halley Garrett. He only drank less than Lewis because the responsibilities of his rank demanded it; as far as drinking buddies went, that was all Lewis needed.

“Be glad you don't have to sit on this one, Lew, I took a glance at the files earlier and this case looks like a doozy. A list of extenuating circumstances longer than my leg.”

“There but for the grace of God go I,” Lewis said with a sunny smile and a clink of their glasses. He sobered his expression--not too difficult--and shook his head in feigned dismay. “I tell you what, though, it's a crying shame about Gene Roe.”

“Which one is he?”

“The medic. I can't speak for the other guy, but it’s a crying shame about Roe, he's the best damn medic we've had. He just about single-handedly kept Easy from falling apart in Bastogne." He swirled the brandy around in his glass and forced himself to look pensive. 

Garrett gave a dramatic shudder. “Christ, Bastogne. If I never have to face a battle like that again I’ll die a happy man. We lost almost a third of our men to combat exhaustion alone."

"We lost about a quarter. We would have lost more, if not for Gene Roe. _Damn_, what a shame. You know, they almost awarded him the Silver Star?"

“No shit?" Garrett’s brows climbed up into his hairline. “A fairy got recommended for a medal?”

"Yeah, it's crazy. But he doesn't seem to care what the Germans are firing, when someone shouts for a medic, he's there. When any other man would get his arms blown off, Roe’s there, putting the men back together. It's the damndest thing.”

“He didn't get it, though?”

“Nah, they passed him over for some hotshot in Dog Company. Never heard a peep out of Roe, but his sergeant wouldn't shut up about it, he almost bent my ear off asking what went wrong." Lewis shook his head as if in wonderment. “I never would have guessed he was queer.”

Garrett was quiet for a while. Then, "So the men like him? Even though he's...?"

"Hmm? Oh, yeah. Ask any of them, they love him. Oh, and another thing,” he said, as though he'd just remembered, as though this wasn't the entire reason he'd come knocking with a bottle of Hal Garrett’s second-favorite booze the night before the disposition board. “I can say with absolute certainty that the functionality of Easy Company will be severely compromised without Gene Roe’s presence.”

Garrett stared down in his brandy with a deep frown. “Well. That complicates matters.”

“Like I said.” Lewis drained his glass to hide his smile. “It's a damn shame.”

* * *

Gene was walking the main ward of the Division Hospital when Major Winters found him.

It was a small hospital, more of a waystation to stabilize the wounded, or to evaluate the psychologically damaged, before sending them off to more capable, final destinations. Aside from the violent patients (or the sexual deviants awaiting interrogation), who were kept in isolation rooms, all the patients were kept together. Gene had been admitted to the main ward earlier that day, in time to see Babe escorted out in his full uniform, his copper hair shining under the hospital lights. He’d sent Gene a single, unreadable look, so intense it almost took Gene’s breath away, before the MPs shooed him out the door. Acid churned in Gene’s belly. He was so relieved he was almost nauseous with it, that Babe had gotten out without a scratch, that Gene hadn’t ruined him, but God save him, he didn’t know where they stood.

Well, that wasn’t all true. He was still wearing pajamas and a fucking bathrobe, so Gene reckoned he knew where he stood with the board. Whether Babe Heffron still wanted to see him, however, was another issue. The thought of Babe turning away from him in disgust curdled his guts.

“Hey, Doc,” the Major said, walking up. Gene looked over at him, then immediately away, humiliation burning in his cheeks.

“Hello, sir.” It came out creaky; he hadn’t spoken much since the round of interviews with Dr. Meadowsweet.

“I just got finished with yours and Babe’s paperwork.” The Major sounded hesitant. “D’you want to have a seat?”

Gene gave a brittle smile. “That bad, huh?”

“It could have gone much worse,” Major Winters said. “But I won’t lie to you, you’ll have a black mark on your record, and you’re not out of the woods yet.”

The ward was fairly quiet. The Germans hadn’t been acting up since the Bulge, retreating to lick their wounds and deal with Russia on their rapidly collapsing eastern front. There were a lot of empty beds. Gene picked one and sat down. Major Winters sat on the one opposite.

“Well,” the Major began. “Out with it, I guess. I had to make a few decisions on your behalf, namely that you’d rather stay with the men than go home with a diagnosis of psychoneurosis. I hope you’ll forgive me for that.” He fiddled with his garrison cap.

A sharp tangle of emotions tightened in Gene’s chest. God, an honorable discharge and home had been so close and he hadn’t even known it. But he’d have left the men. Left Babe. And the war wasn’t done; Gene hated the thought of leaving a job unfinished. He nodded for Major Winters to go on.

“That means a diagnosis of homosexuality is going on your permanent record,” he said. “The Joint Chiefs want everyone with that diagnosis out, but Dr. Meadowsweet thinks he can rehabilitate you, and if he feels he has, then you can be reassigned.” Winters set his cap aside so he didn’t wring it into a mess. “It’s three weeks, Gene. Say what they want you to say, knuckle under, and you’ll be back with us.”

Gene ducked his head to hide the stinging in his eyes. Mother of God, he could scarcely make himself believe it. “And the discharge?”

“Honorable, if you serve out the war without further incidents.”

His breath gusted out of him, leaving him dizzy. He propped his head up in his hands. “God Almighty,” he whispered, feeling so small and blessed in that moment he barely knew up from down.

“I had a devil of a time convincing Colonel Garrett to allow for treatment, he’s old guard as far as homosexuals go, but Nix spoke to him last night, and Dr. Meadowsweet and I argued for you. We need you, Gene. I wasn’t going to let him throw the book at you, not if I could help it.”

Gene dug the heels of his palms into his eyes. That would be a fitting cap to his diagnosis, if he were to start sobbing in the middle of the hospital ward. He had to swallow twice before he could manage to get words out. “Thank you, sir.”

Major Winters’s hand came down on his shoulder, and Gene almost lost it right there, pride or no. “You’re a damn good medic, Gene. You toe the line for three weeks, dot your i’s and cross your t’s, and I’ll make sure you’re back in Easy.”

Three weeks, and he’d see--he’d--

He could do three weeks. He’d survived Bastogne. “Yes, sir.”

“Good man.” Then his voice shifted strangely. “You show them how it’s done, Gene. You show them what we can do.”

Gene raised his head, a question on his lips, but the Major was already walking down the ward, accepting the salutes of the orderlies as he made for the doors. Gene turned back to stare at his hands.

He had no idea where he and Babe stood, but now, he had a chance to find out. “Holy Mary, pray for us poor sinners, now and at the hour of our death,” he murmured, wrapping the tail of his bathrobe belt around his fingers. By God’s grace, he had a chance.

* * *

Babe couldn’t get that last sight of Gene out of his head. He’d stood skinny and pale in those fucking hospital pajamas, his hair a wild shock of black against the sterile white. He watched as the MPs escorted Babe out, and Babe couldn’t fucking stop feeling guilty. He hadn’t abandoned Gene. He _hadn’t_. The disposition board had made its decision, and… what? Come to the conclusion that he was somehow better than Doc fucking Roe?

The look on Gene’s face, in that half-second they’d locked eyes. Like his heart was being ripped out, but he was trying not to show it.

Babe scrubbed his hands down over his own face. The board had let him out without a discharge, which meant he wasn’t a queer. So why couldn’t he stop thinking about Gene? He wasn’t a girl, for Babe to be caught up on him like this; he was a fellow soldier. A fellow soldier Babe had asked to fuck him. Christ, he couldn’t believe he’d thought they could get away with it. He could still remember the weight of Gene’s cock in his ass, remember the way it had sent shocks through every inch of him until he thought he’d shiver right out of his skin. He wasn’t queer, so why was he still fucking _thinking_ about it?

All he’d had were a couple of beers beforehand. That was barely anything, hardly even a buzz. It wasn’t enough to explain away the weeks of stolen kisses and furtive handjobs, and one white-hot blowjob that made Babe’s toes curl in his boots just at the memory. It wasn't enough to wave aside all the times Babe fingered himself under the blankets, so hard at how filthy and forbidden it was that he'd leaked against his stomach and come on a dime. It wasn’t enough to explain why he’d practically begged Gene to do it, how reluctant Gene had been, how fucking _careful_, and so tender it made Babe ache even now, a week and a lifetime later.

He couldn’t shake the knowledge that the docs were wrong about him. If they thought Babe Heffron was more useful to the war than Gene Roe, they’d already got the most important thing wrong.

The truck stopped outside the company tents, brakes squealing. Someone pounded on the back of the cab. Babe scrammed, jumping over the tailgate to the soggy ground. He pounded on the side of the cab in reply, and the truck was off, no more ceremony than that, leaving Babe in a cloud of exhaust.

It was the dead of night. 0132, to be precise, because Babe had had nothing to do on the ten minute drive but stare out the back and check his watch. He didn’t have anything else on him, just his uniform, his watch, and his sucking nerves. He took a deep breath and let it out. If anything was going to happen, it wouldn’t happen until the next morning. He headed to the tents.

“Password?” the sentry challenged him.

Babe froze. It felt like a year, not three days, since he’d been arrested. “Pantagruel,” he finally dredged up, and the sentry--a replacement, Babe knew him by face, but not by name--straightened like he'd been poked by a Kraut bayonet.

“Private Heffron!”

“Yeah, that’s me,” he said, and reached for his breast pocket for his cigarettes, but he forgot he’d smoked the last of them two days ago.

“They released you?”

“Yeah,” he answered, not wanting to have this conversation. “Why, what’s it to you?”

“N-nothing,” the replacement said, his eyes as big around as Babe’s ma’s grandmother’s china cups.

“You gonna let me by?”

The sentry jumped aside. “There’s a formation tomorrow at zero-seven-thirty,” he said, his eyes still enormous. Like he was looking at a celebrity. Or an infamous criminal. 

“Ain’t there always,” Babe muttered, pushing past him into 2nd platoon’s tent. He paused for a few moments to let his eyes adjust, and to swallow down the coppery taste of fear coating the back of his throat. The sleeping breaths of his fellow soldiers should have been a homecoming, but here he was, so far behind friendly lines that the war was barely a glow over the trees, jumping at Malarkey's snorts like they were German potshots.

His rack was still made, his footlocker still there at the foot. Babe chewed on his lips to keep from making a noise. He tiptoed over--Sergeant Martin woke when a mouse farted, so Babe reckoned he already knew Babe was back--and didn’t even bother cracking the sheets or undressing, he just dumped himself on the cot and, using the skills forged through a month of hell in Belgium, went to sleep.

He was woken by a shout directly in his ear.

“Rise and shine, sleeping beauty!”

Babe was already reaching for his rifle before he remembered where he was. “Go _fuck_ yourself,” he snapped at Christensen, who was laughing at him.

“What, like you did?”

The air was sucked out of the room by all the indrawn breaths. Christensen’s eyes were wide, and Babe _knew_, right down in his gut, that he couldn’t bear to hear him stutter out an apology. He opened his mouth, and what fell out was as much a surprise to him as it was to everyone else. “Yeah, well, at least I’ve got good taste, you sorry motherfucker!”

Christensen’s peal of shocked laughter broke the tension. “The fuck, Babe! Only a fairy like you would squeak past the shrinks just to admit he actually is one to the whole platoon!”

“You know you want this ass, Christensen,” Babe said, waggling his brows. He was pretty sure he was possessed. He’d never acted like this before, never especially wanted to, never so much as _thought_ to.

“Babe, I don’t care if you’re the last person on this fucking rock--”

Babe didn’t let him finish, certain only that if he didn’t establish status quo early and hard, then he’d be in for a rough time of it. He lunged off his rumpled bed and caught Christensen, still in his shorts and undershirt, in a headlock. “C’mon, say it!” he practically shouted, dragging Christensen around by his head. “You want a piece’a this ass!”

Christensen yowled like a stray cat, digging in his fingernails and trying to wriggle his way loose, and bets started up all around them on who would win. Babe could have cried with relief at the normality of it. He ground his knuckles into Christensen’s head, who retaliated by going for Babe’s armpits, before Martin’s voice cracked through the din.

“Platoon! Atten--_shun_!”

That command was buried so deeply in everyone’s minds that they dropped they were doing to stand at rigid attention, cigarettes and chocolate rations forgotten. Babe and Christensen stood next to each other, Babe’s tie hanging out of his jacket and the chain of Christensen’s dogtags dangling over his ear.

“What in the blue fuck is going on, here?” Martin bellowed, glaring at everyone in turn.

Silence met him.

“Well? I’m waiting for an explanation!”

“We were welcoming Babe back,” Web answered, and Babe personally thought David Webster was a pretentious fuck, but he could have kissed him in that moment. 

Martin turned his glare to Babe. “Welcome back,” he said, sounding as welcoming as a pissed-off German shepherd. “Fix your damn tie, we’ve got formation in five minutes. That goes for all of you cocksuckers! Get your shit squared away! I wouldn’t present you to my own fucking grandmother like this!” He marched out of the barracks. “Five minutes!”

The barracks exploded into activity. Babe tucked his tie back into his jacket and blouse. There wasn’t much to be done for his boots or the wrinkled creases of his uniform pants, but he could give less of a shit. Easy was fresh off a campaign, and Babe was fresh off a disposition hearing. They could make him do all the fucking PT they wanted.

“Hey, Babe.” Christensen was half-turned to look at Babe as he dragged on his pants. “Have you ever actually sucked--”

“If you finish that sentence, Christensen, I swear to God I’ll actually tell you.”

Christensen made a face.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought. Put your fucking pants on and mind your damn business.”

Maybe he _was_ a queer. The platoon didn’t seem to give a shit, though, so Babe decided not to let it bother him. There were more important things to worry about, like Gene’s missing spot in formation, and Babe’s inability to decide whether he missed Eugene Roe like warmth on a winter’s day, or if he never wanted to see him ever again.

* * *

“Who’s that patient?” Dr. Richard Taylor, the newest provider at Medical HQ in Mourmelon, asked, pointing down the ward.

Dr. John Franklin followed the direction of his finger. “Ah. That’s Technician Roe. Medic for Easy Company, 506th regiment. He was reported for homosexual behavior alongside a fellow soldier.”

Taylor’s eyes went wide. “And you’re letting him near the other patients?”

John sighed internally. This one was new, alright. Fresh out of medical school, from a small town, probably never met a homosexual in real life before. “Come with me,” he said, and walked down the ward toward the man in question, Taylor trailing after him like an exceptionally reluctant duckling.

“The first thing the psychiatrist must do,” John said as they walked, “is to release his biases. They cloud judgment and obscure the nuance of an individual case.”

Technician Roe looked up as they approached. He’d sat himself on the empty bed opposite Private Simmons, an unfortunate case with anxiety so severe he could barely bring himself to leave the ward. He was awaiting transport back to the States, but in the meantime, Roe kept him company. 

“Hello, Eugene, Patrick,” John said. “How are we doing today?”

Simmons was perched on the head of the bed, clutching his knees and rocking slightly, his eyes darting around the room. “Same shit, different day, sir.”

“I was reading him his letters,” Roe said, in his slow, quiet way, the aforementioned letters open on the bed beside him. “One from his mother, another from his brother in the Pacific.”

“Oh, God.” Simmons buried his face in his knees. “Oh, God, he’s gonna die, the Japs are gonna land a fucking shell right on his head--”

“You know what my Company CO says?” Roe asked him, leaning forward so his elbows were resting on his knees.

Simmons shook his head, a convulsive movement, hampered by the fistful of hair he held in a deathgrip.

“He says we’re already dead, and the bullet just hasn’t found us yet.”

Delivered in Roe’s calm voice, you’d almost miss the brutal pragmatism of his words. Dr. Taylor opened his mouth, an outraged expression on his face, but John cut him off. Simmons had stopped rocking.

“I-I can’t stop thinking,” he began haltingly. “What if--what if the Luftwaffe drop a bomb, what if their artillery sneak through our lines in a second Bulge, what if--”

“Hey, hey. Don't think about that. I want you to name me all the states and their capitals instead, can you do that for me?”

“Um. A-alabama, Montgomery. Mississippi, Jackson. Texas, Austin. Arkansas, Little Rock…”

Simmons went through the states, and just like he had every other time Technician Roe had set him the task, it calmed him down enough that he didn’t crash into a full-blown attack. By the time he’d gotten to “Connecticut, Hartford,” he was calm enough to let his shoulders sag in exhaustion.

“You know, sometimes I wish a bomb _would_ just drop.”

Roe took this with the equanimity he always did. “Then it would be over and done with.”

Simmons sighed explosively. “Yeah. Yeah, it’d be decided one way or another.”

“Seems to me it’s worse waiting for it to happen.”

“Yeah. Sure. I guess.”

“There was a time,” Roe began slowly, “in the Bois Jacques outside of Bastogne, where I froze. I was just so fucking _tired_, every scream and gunshot ripped at my soul, I wanted peace so badly.”

John listened in despite himself. It was a continual surprise that this man, this diagnosed homosexual that the Army swore was an innately terrible soldier, was a veteran of Bastogne.

“It took B--one of my buddies dragging me out of my foxhole to make me face my duty. It helped _me_ then, maybe it’ll help you: find a job to do. Maybe ask one of the orderlies if you can fold sheets. Distribute bedpans, write letters, whatever you can do, huh?”

Simmons didn’t say anything.

“You think on that,” Roe said, shaking his carefully folded hands before him.

John turned to Dr. Taylor. “Simmons was nearly catatonic when he came here. Paralyzed with fear.”

“What treatment did you use?”

John smiled wryly. “Daily doses of Eugene Roe.”

Roe’s head shot up at that, a wary look on his face.

“Sometimes,” John said for both their benefits, “a man just needs listening to. Reassurance that he’s not alone.”

Taylor’s mouth twisted. 

John decided to cut him off at the pass. “Eugene, come meet our newest physician. Dr. Taylor, from--Wyoming, right?” He beckoned him over, and slowly moved them away from Simmons’s bed.

“Glendo,” Dr. Taylor said. “Went to school in Laramie.”

“Eugene here is from Bayou Chene, Louisiana. What’s it like there, Eugene? I’m a San Diego man, myself.”

“Underwater,” Roe replied. “The Mississippi flooded it back in ‘27.”

“Ah, well,” John said, trying for philosophical to cover his slip. “These things happen, I suppose.”

Roe gave him a faintly patronizing look. “They sure do.”

“Well anyway, Taylor here hasn’t met a sexual psychopath like yourself before, I thought I’d break the ice.”

The polite curiosity in Roe’s expression vanished beneath an impassive wall. “Did you, now.”

Eugene Roe had never been especially communicative, save with the patients as needed it, but when he was so inclined he could clam up worse than Army Intelligence. If it wasn’t for the compassion he showed to men like Simmons, John wouldn’t be sure what to think of Roe’s progress. Dr. Meadowsweet was in charge of his rehabilitation, not John, thank God, but model patient or not, Roe could be downright impenetrable.

John willed himself not to laugh at the pun.

“What makes you do it?” Taylor asked, clearly dropping the first question on his mind. “Don’t you have any thought for decency?”

“Apparently, there’s too many women in my life,” Roe said, and though his tone was perfectly level, John couldn’t shake the sense that Roe held both of them in the deepest contempt.

“In--in accordance with Freud’s theories,” Taylor said, stumbling beneath the icy chill of Roe’s gaze. “A lack of male role models in a child’s life--”

Roe turned to John, speaking over Taylor. “Do you know when Private Simmons is being shipped out?”

“By the end of the week, at the latest,” John said, with better equanimity than Taylor.

“Good. The farther away from the front he is, the better.”

It didn’t matter that he stood in a hospital, dressed in the uniform of a patient. Eugene Roe spoke with the authority of a seasoned medic. John was reminded that the reason Roe wasn’t scheduled to ship out on the same boat as Simmons was because of that capability. Easy Company needed him, it seemed, so much that they were willing to accept a known homosexual back into their ranks. They’d already accepted back Roe’s lover; John had made his opinions on allowing them to serve in the same unit roundly and soundly known, but the XO of 2nd Battalion apparently didn’t share his reservations.

“Is there a cure for it?” Taylor asked, turning to John.

“Not as such,” John replied, keenly aware that Roe was staring at him. “Dr. Meadowsweet is confident that psychoanalysis will help. What are your thoughts, Eugene?”

Roe’s gaze went unfocused over John’s shoulder. “He’s explained to me the liability homosexuals represent in combat units.”

Roe didn’t sound very convinced, but he still had two weeks left of treatment. More than anything, John sensed deep disquiet about him, a hidden agony that hadn’t been present when speaking to Simmons. Perhaps that was the sign Dr. Meadowsweet was getting through to him. It couldn’t be easy, confronting the harm your mental illness drove you to.

“Dr. Taylor was wondering why we allowed you among the other patients. He felt, given your diagnosis, it was unsafe for them. Is there anything you can say to ease his mind?”

The look Roe gave him was, for a brief moment, gutted. He couldn’t quite meet Taylor’s gaze as he said, “I would walk into an artillery barrage before I harmed any man under my care. I could never betray their trust like that.”

John couldn’t help but draw out the line of questioning a little further. “But your lover, he was one of those men, wasn’t he?”

Roe’s expression went, if possible, even more haggard. “It was a mistake,” he said quietly. “It won’t happen again.”

“There,” John said, easing off with a blooming sense of satisfaction. “Does that satisfy your curiosity, Dr. Taylor?”

Taylor gave Roe a suspicious, assessing examination. “I suppose it’ll have to, for now.”

“The notion of the male homosexual as a predator really is insufficiently studied,” John expounded. “Dr. Lewis Loeser at the 36th Station Hospital has been putting out some fascinating research on the subject, I can lend you the relevant journals.”

“May I be excused, Dr. Franklin?” Roe interrupted, his voice monotone.

“Oh, of course,” John said, jerked back to the ward for a moment. “Just got lost in the theory there, pardon me.”

“Not at all,” Roe said hollowly, and drifted away.

John watched him go and sit on a bed at the end of the ward and draw his knees up rather like Simmons. He turned back to Taylor. “Anyway, Technician Roe is a model patient, truly a fascinating case study. I have his file in my office, if you wanted to study it further…”

* * *

“Hey, Lieb, do you know how these medals are supposed to go?”

Out of the corner of his eye, Babe saw Liebgott’s head jerk up from his own blouse, where he was piecing his ribbons together. “The fuck, Webster? How long have you been in this fucking outfit?”

Webster looked completely unruffled by Liebgott’s temper. “Too goddamn long,” was his glib reply.

“Amen,” Alley and McClung said at the same time.

Liebgott made a show of irritated exasperation, flinging his unfastened ribbons down on his bunk and slouching over to peer over Webster’s shoulder. If it hadn’t been for the twitching uptick of his lips, Babe would have thought him genuinely pissed. If it hadn’t been for the blatant smugness on Webster’s face, Babe would have thought his ignorance genuine, and not an excuse for Lieb to lean into his space. 

Babe kept his eyes on the ace of spades he was stenciling fresh on his helmet and didn’t say anything. There wasn’t anything to say. But watching the way Liebgott put his hand on Webster’s shoulder as he bent over to chew him out that no, his presidential citation went on the right breast and the ribbons on the left, Jesus Christ, Webster, did you land on your fucking head--

Colonel Sink himself had given Babe a lecture about the dangers of drunkenness. “I know it’s easy to succumb to the pressures of battle, but if you keep your nose clean, you’ll be shipped back home to pleasanter company soon enough.” Babe didn’t think he’d ever be able to remember it without wincing with his whole body, but it had been over quickly. Two days of doctors, twenty minutes of humiliation before the regimental CO, and that was it, he was returned to duty.

It had been two weeks since Babe had last seen Gene. He dipped the brush in the little jar of white paint and laid another layer over the ace. MPs had collected Gene’s footlocker the day after Babe had been sent back to Easy. He’d watched them carry it out and load it in the back of a jeep, and Babe had forgotten how to breathe for most of a minute until Christensen had snapped him out of it.

Gene clearly hadn’t just gotten a lecture from Colonel Sink.

For all Babe knew, Gene could be on a boat back home right now, pressed in with a thousand other men too wounded or disgraced to keep fighting. Babe saw it so vividly in his mind’s eye: Gene lying on his rack, alone in a crowd, staring at the rack above him with a bleak expression. Walking the deck, chilled by the ocean breeze and hunched down in his coat without Babe there to keep him laughing and warm. Maybe some of the GIs would catch wind of the fact that Gene got a blue ticket for being queer, and _that_ sent a frisson of terror down Babe’s spine. Gene, trapped in a hallway by a gang of red-blooded, angry men--

Babe lifted the paintbrush off his helmet so it wouldn’t smear as he shook. He took deep breaths, like he was setting up a shot in the middle of a firefight.

If Gene was on his way home, they sure as hell wouldn’t tell _Babe_ about it. He wasn’t next-of-kin, he wasn’t even a buddy anymore: he was an accomplice. Worse, Babe couldn’t even send a letter, because he didn’t have Gene’s address. It hadn’t even occurred to him to think that far ahead. Gene was here, so what did knowing his address matter? And--and if he was being sent home, and decided to send a letter back to Babe--well. Censors were always watching. Babe would be surprised if a letter to him from Eugene Roe was let through. 

If Gene was on his way home, then Babe would likely never see him again, unless he felt like scoping out all of Baton Rouge.

“I swear to God, Webster, if we have to sit out the invasion of Berlin because Eisenhower sees _your_ shitty medals--”

Webster’s thigh sagged to rest against Liebgott’s leg, and Babe’s chest ached so fiercely he could scarcely breathe.

“On second thought, go away,” Webster said, smiling slyly. “Wouldn’t want the general to get the wrong idea.”

“No _fucking_ way, those medals will be on there right if I have to do it myself!”

The fondness on Webster’s face forced Babe to turn away. He held his half-painted helmet in his lap and just breathed, until the constriction around his chest went away. It hadn’t hurt even half this bad when he’d gotten Doris’s letter.

“Hey, Babe,” Perconte said quietly. “You alright?”

Babe swallowed and forced a smile on his face. “Never fuckin’ better. Why?”

Perconte gave him a long, searching look. “You look like your mother died, or something.”

The careful way Perconte said it was all Babe needed to know what he was really asking. Babe briefly considered being deliberately obtuse, but he couldn’t bring himself to. 

“Nothing like that,” he said. “More like no news at all, and not likely to get any.”

“That’s a bitch,” Perconte said with feeling.

“Yeah,” Babe replied through the knot in his throat. “Yeah, it’s a bitch.”

He made up his mind then and there. If he survived the rest of the war, he’d comb through the entire goddamn state of Louisiana for Gene Roe, even if it took him forty years.

* * *

Major Richard Winters  
2nd Battalion, 506th PIR  
101st Airborne, XVIII Airborne Corps  
Mourmelon-le-Grande  
Memo: Reinstatement of Tcn. Roe

March 26, 1945

Major Winters:

I had better not regret this decision.

Signed,

Col. Robert F. Sink

* * *

Babe thought he was seeing things, at first. No way was that Gene, no way were those his skinny coat-hanger shoulders, his Adam’s apple that stuck out a full fucking inch, his controlled, rangy lope. Babe was seeing things, because there was no way Gene had been reassigned to the same company as Babe, which meant he couldn’t be standing in the chow line fourteen people ahead of him, loading down his tray with the Army’s very best shit on a shingle.

For a wild, unbridled second Babe almost dropped his tray and ran over. He could already feel the warmth of Gene’s upper arms in his hands as he’d drag him out of the line just to stare at him. He almost did just that--until Perco jammed his tray in Babe’s kidneys and dragged him back to reality.

“You gonna fucking move, or what? Some of us are hungry, back here!”

Babe stumbled forward. His arms and legs were dead weight; the only life in him was the fire burning in his chest. Gene was _here_. He had no fucking clue how. The line moved forward, the cooks slopped chipped beef onto his tray, and Babe barely noticed. He kept checking to see if Gene was still there, still walking through the lines of tables, his shoulders hunched up around his ears, not on a boat back to the States but _here_, where Babe could see him. At least, he was until he slipped out the mess hall door, and Babe was left wondering if he was having fever dreams. He didn’t feel sick, but he was clearly hallucinating.

“Hey, Babe, you awake in there?”

He dragged himself back to the table he was sitting at--he had no fucking clue how he’d gotten there--to Liebgott’s sharp, mocking smile. Liebgott had been a shit ever since Babe got back, running hot and cold like he couldn’t make up his mind how to act.

“Yeah, I’m here,” Babe said, forcing himself to look down at his tray instead of flinging it aside and racing after Gene. He picked up his fork.

“Looks like Doc Roe’s back,” McClung said cautiously. 

“Looks like,” Babe replied, unable to trust his voice any further. He left it there, and the others left it, too.

If he was smart he’d avoid Gene altogether, pretend they were strangers or something. Gene was just a replacement and Babe had no stake in his welfare--

But Babe had signed up to jump out of perfectly good airplanes. No one had ever said he was smart. His entire body was on fire just knowing Gene was within arm’s reach.

Three fucking weeks, and now Babe couldn’t touch him.

The remainder of the afternoon passed in a haze. What had happened with the doctors? The disposition board? What had happened for those three weeks? Where did he and Babe stand? And most of all, the burning question at the center of Babe’s spiralling wave of indecision: what did _he_ want to do? Did he want to pick up where he and Gene had left off, or did he want to take this as a sign to let it die?

He followed mindlessly through the close-order drills they had that afternoon, and he could have sworn a cord bound him and Gene together. It didn’t matter where they were in formation, Babe always knew where Gene was. Each about-face, Babe’s eyes zeroed in on the back of Gene’s head through the thicket of garrison caps.

And through all of it, he searched for a way to find Gene alone. It rose up in Babe’s mind: if he could just get Gene alone, somewhere they wouldn’t be seen or overheard, he could find out what the fuck was going on in his head, and everything would make sense.

Then it was downtime. Then it was back to the agony of indecision. What was Gene doing now? Could Babe go looking for him, or would it look suspicious? Before, Babe could have wandered over to 1st platoon or the medical tents whenever he felt like it, because he and Gene were buddies and no one questioned it. Now, though, they’d been arrested for sexual perversion and the entire company knew it. Their every interaction would be suspect. How did you re-establish status quo when it was a blasted crater?

“Just go, Babe,” Shifty said quietly. He was frowning down at the new rifle he’d requisitioned, but when he looked up at Babe, he smiled. “We all know you want to.”

Babe’s insides turned to cold jello. “I don’t want to go anywhere.”

“Yeah, and the Pope’s a Methodist,” More muttered.

“Do you want to go again, pal, 'cause I’ll beat you black and--”

“Jesus Christ,” Janovec barked, raising his head up from the book he was reading. “Babe, get the fuck out, already. Go give him a fucking hello kiss, you clearly want to.”

“Go to hell, Johnny--”

“Sure, if it's quiet there! If I’m not being driven insane by your horny indecision! Fucking go get laid or whatever, and leave us in peace!”

Babe stared at him, trying to move as little as possible, as though if he stayed small and immobile they’d turn away and leave him to his humiliation. The tension in the barracks was unbearable, and he was certain a good chunk of it was his fault.

“Just fucking go,” Liebgott muttered, looking like someone had pissed in his coffee.

Babe went. He snatched up his jacket and garrison cap and fled, less to find Gene and more to escape the terrible knowledge that they all _knew_ he wanted to find Gene.

For lack of anywhere better to go, he wandered toward Easy’s medical supply tent. Babe rubbed his thumb over the scar on his palm, the one from Gene’s scissors. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

* * *

“Someone to see you, Gene.” Spina’s voice drew Gene out of the inventory he'd buried himself in.

Spina’s expression was neutral, the way it had been ever since Gene got back. He’d kept a solid yard of distance between him and Gene, too.

Gene understood. He hated it, missing the easy camaraderie they'd shared in Bastogne and Haguenau, but he understood. The stigma of homosexuality was catching, even if the sickness itself wasn't.

“Who is it?” He couldn't imagine anyone who’d want to see him, short of--but he wouldn't come to see Gene, not on the first day. If he came at all. 

Spina’s expression soured, and that was all Gene needed. He swallowed heavily, suddenly sick with apprehension. “I’ll get rid of him,” he said, putting down the clipboard.

Spina just grunted and let him by.

Babe was just inside the tent flap, his cap in hand and a sweaty, nervous expression on his face. His eyes lit up when he saw Gene, though, and Gene, God help him, he reflected it right back. He squashed it down as viciously as he could.

“You can't be here,” he said, and ached when that bright, hopeful expression guttered.

“I just wanted to see you,” Babe replied, and it was too much, too goddamn much. Rage like he'd never known grabbed Gene by the throat, and he grabbed Babe by the arm.

“Out,” he snapped, shoving Babe out the flap. “Out, get the fuck out!” He dragged him over to the ambulances, where they’d be out of earshot, but in the safety of plain sight. “What the hell is wrong with you! We can't be seen together, you know you can't come by like you used to! The _hell_ were you thinking?” 

“I was thinking I wanted to see you,” Babe said, getting that stubborn set to his jaw Gene loved and hated. “That illegal now, too?”

“Between us, yes, it is! It literally is! Jesus Christ, Babe!”

Babe’s expression was pinched, his freckles standing out against his splotchy flush. He opened his mouth (God, Gene could remember the way that mouth felt on his skin), but Gene cut him off.

“No, you fucking listen, huh? You got away scott-free, but I’ve got a goddamn blue letter stitched across my fucking chest. I cannot afford to have you sniffing around my ass like a bitch in heat, ça va?”

“What, and you think I can?” Babe hissed. “You think I haven't been getting sly fucking comments for the past three weeks? Every time someone starts horsing around I wonder if they're gonna roll me into the fucking hospital wing, Gene! Maybe one day their jokes’ll turn mean, maybe one day they won't be jokes! You think the brass are gonna listen to my side next time if shit happens? You think they’ll listen to the trouble-making fairy who pranced away from a discharge _scott-free_?”

Gene’s heart clenched like a fist had wrapped around it and squeezed, but he forced himself to stay sharp and distant. “If you understand,” he said coldly, “then why the fuck did you come around?”

Babe stared at him, his eyes overbright. “I don't know, Gene. I don't _fucking_ know.”

They breathed heavily into the silence between them, like the aftermath of lovemaking but uglier and more painful. Gene traced his eyes over the long line of Babe’s nose, his lips, soft even when they were chapped.

“Leave me alone,” Gene said quietly, and tried not to crumple when Babe looked like he'd been slapped. “Just leave me alone.”

He turned and walked back into the medical tent, and this time, Babe didn't follow.

* * *

Martin sighed above him. “Damn it, Babe.”

“Sorry, Sarge.” Shame washed in alongside the self-pity. “Know I’m a fuck-up.”

“Shut up, Heffron, I swear to Christ.” Martin reached down to haul him up, and the world sloshed sideways as Babe got to his feet. “You puke on me, I’m dropping you back in the mud.”

“I’m good, I’m good,” Babe slurred. “M’Irish, I can hold my liquor.”

“Yeah, you're holding it real fucking well.”

Martin steered him toward the barracks, and for a while Babe concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other. His rack would probably be more comfortable than the ground.

“Heard you went to see the Doc,” Martin said reluctantly. “Thought you’d, y’know, be past this.”

Babe made a horrible noise, sort of a laugh, even though he felt more like crying. “Didn’t go so well, Sarge.”

“Jesus Christ.”

Desperation--maybe insanity--overcame Babe. “Can I ask you a question, Johnny?”

“Depends on the question.” The world was swimming around him, but Babe was pretty sure, even just looking down at the top of Martin’s head, that he really wanted Babe to shut up. 

Any other day, Babe might have. But he was also pretty sure that rabid dogs were tearing his insides out, so he needed to--to know. He needed to know. “How’d you figure out you loved your wife?”

“Oh, _hell_ no.” Martin started pushing him away, but Babe clung on. Desperation, insanity, fucking lovesickness, who knew, not Babe.

“Come on, please, you gotta--I gotta know, Johnny, I’m fucking dying here.”

“I just did, okay! I just knew! Let me go!” He shoved, and Babe went down like a sack of bricks. At least he landed on the grassy verge, dead and brown though it was, rather than the gravel. That would have hurt.

Martin sighed again.

Babe tried to keep his tears in, he really did try. “Think maybe I love him,” he mumbled at the stars, his pride pissed out long ago with the first round of cheap liquor. “And I think maybe he doesn't love me back.”

For a while it was just Babe and the earthy smell of the dirt all around him. A strange smell, even after all the time in foxholes--he was a city boy all the way through--but a good one.

“Fuck,” Martin said. “Speirs is gonna kill me.”

Babe didn't think he was meant to hear that, so he pretended like he hadn't. He imagined the earth rising up around him, French turf eating him alive and dragging him down to the cool peace underground. That didn't sound so bad.

“Christ, Heffron, you’re not a fucking woman, stop acting like one. Man up.”

Babe snorted wetly. “No, I’m a fucking queer. There you go, Sarge, you got a confession. Go ahead and give me that blue ticket, send me home like I should have been three weeks ago. Just get it out of the way.” He wiped his nose on the back of his hand. “I can’t keep waiting for it to happen.”

“I am not drunk enough for this,” Martin muttered somewhere overhead. “And you're _too_ drunk.” A pair of hands grabbed him by the shoulders and hauled him up until he was sitting. Martin glowered in his face. “I’m only saying this once, Babe, so you better fucking listen. You listening?”

Babe swatted away his hands. “Yeah, I’m listening.”

“I don’t care who or what you fuck, you understand me? Go and fuck those French sheep if you’re that hard up, just don’t do it where I can see. I ain’t giving you a blue discharge, and Doc Roe ain’t getting one either. You know why?”

“Why?” Babe could barely get the word out, his mouth was so dry.

“Because we’re about to start the final push into Germany, and none of us know what we’re gonna find. I need every able soldier and every able medic on hand, and you two shitstains are among the ablest we’ve got. So you listen right the fuck here, ‘cause I’m gonna lay it out straight for you, Babe.” Martin’s eyes were iron-hard. “Anyone complains about the company queers, I ignore it. Anyone tries to start shit, they’ll find out just hard I can make the Army hit back.”

Babe stared at Martin, agog.

“I don’t want you getting any ideas, though. You can do whatever the fuck keeps you from turning into a weepy pansy, but you keep it where me and the rest of Easy don’t have to see it. That’s the deal, Heffron.”

Babe didn’t answer right away, too slackjawed to respond, and Martin shook him. “That’s the deal, are you gonna take it or leave it?”

“Not gonna fucking leave it,” Babe said, his face numb with booze and his emotions numb with shock. “I’m drunk, Sarge, not stupid.”

“You could have fooled me,” Martin shot back. “Glad we got that settled. Now get off your ass, I’m not staying out here long enough for you to sober up.”

“Aww, Johnny, I never knew you cared.” Babe didn’t know how the goddamn hell he’d gotten into a unit this fine, but somehow he had. Maybe God was smiling on him, like his ma always said. He pushed himself to his knees, and from there, with a helping hand or three from Martin, he got to his feet. 

“There are times I wish I didn’t know you,” Martin said.

“Yeah,” Babe said, patting the hand over his shoulder. “Me too.”

They staggered back to the barracks.

* * *

Gene could pinpoint where every single replacement was, just by the heavy tread of their boots in the undergrowth. The veterans, the ones who’d served in Holland and Normandy, they’d all learned how to walk quietly, taught by Shifty, Major Winters, and Hitler’s armies. Gene trailed behind the vanguard, his ears open for any cry of pain or for a medic. It was just a training exercise, but that hardly mattered; just being in a twilit forest was enough to bring down the habits of three years on his head.

No one cried out, though. Gene didn’t expect them to; it was just a training exercise.

Sergeant Grant came through the trees, tossing out the password to Yancey in first squad’s challenge. “There’s a creek about twenty meters up on your two,” he said. “We’re bivouacking there until the rendezvous with 3rd platoon.”

Various sighs of relief answered this pronouncement. Grant passed by Gene, giving him an unreadable look. “You gonna check the men?”

Gene nodded. This was the first time since Toccoa that a sergeant had made sure he was doing his duty. A month ago, Gene probably would have sassed Grant for it. A month ago, Grant wouldn’t have asked in the first place.

“Alright.” Grant gave him another look before heading on into the bush. “Hop to it.”

The men were dropping their packs with various theatrical grunts and groans. “Any blisters or cuts?” Gene asked the closest.

“Nothin’ a little rest won’t fix,” Becker said, leaning his pack against a line of deadfall and cracking his neck.

“Me’n Guth are dandy,” Popeye said. “What about you fellas?” His gaggle of replacements shook their heads. Some used actual words; not one of them met Gene’s eyes, save the one that stared at him like he was an oddity.

“Let me know if that changes,” Gene said, making a conscious effort to keep his cynicism to himself.

“What are you sayin’, Gene, that one’a _my_ asshole buddies--” Popeye cut himself off, leaving the sentence dangling awkwardly.

“Yeah,” Gene finally said, forcing himself to speak. “One of them. Let me know.” He turned and pushed his way through the underbrush.

“Nice going, _Bob_,” Guth muttered behind him.

“Aw, fuck you, Guth. It just came out.”

Gene gritted his teeth and kept walking. There was a reason the Army didn’t want--people like him in its ranks, and this was why. Sooner or later, they’d disrupt unit cohesion. He went to each of the squads, checking for injuries. A few of the Toccoa men--men he’d known for years, through the worst shit a man could endure--came forward with the expected blisters and chafing, but Gene could tell most were holding back. He’d been doing field exercises for what felt like a goddamn lifetime; he knew the stats to expect, and not nearly enough men were lining up for moleskin.

Gene didn’t push. This wasn’t the real deal, anyway. He pulled up a patch of dirt a few yards from 1st platoon and pulled out his K-rations, and tried not to feel like the company leper.

One of the recruits walked past him toward the line of brush that marked their unofficial slit trenches. Limped, really; he must not have seen Gene, because he was wincing and tenderfooting in a way no self-respecting paratrooper would do where people could see. Gene vaguely recalled him getting a ribbing from Christensen, and that was the only reason he knew his name.

“Hey,” he called out. “O’Keefe, right?”

The replacement spun around, his eyes wide as 88s. “Uh,” he said. “Yeah, that’s me.”

“What’s wrong with your feet?”

“Oh, Doc, it’s--it’s nothing.”

“No mames,” Ramirez called out from where he was sitting with Garcia and Welling. “You gonna bleed through your boots.”

A sick chill rolled through Gene. “Lemme see your feet,” he said, standing and making O’Keefe take his seat. O’Keefe went, but with a nervous, uneasy expression.

“Ay, vato, ¡Relajate! Ese fresa no va a comerte!”

“A menos que se lo pidas,” Garcia added, glancing to Gene.

“I don’t know what you’re fucking saying,” O’Keefe muttered, plucking at his shoelaces.

“I know,” Ramirez said with a chuckle. “Not my fault you’re a gringo.”

Gene didn’t speak a lick of Spanish, but he didn't think he needed to. He watched O’Keefe struggle with his shoes and kept his teeth together. He _could_ ream Ramirez out in French, just to remind him he wasn't the only one who could backtalk people in a language they didn't know, but he also didn’t want to cause any more trouble than he already was.

Finally, O’Keefe’s boots came off, and Gene had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from reacting.

“These have been building for a while,” he said, as levelly as he could.

O’Keefe had the grace to look sheepish. “Uh. I guess so.”

They were blisters, torn open and bloody, and chafed until new blisters had formed on top and _those_ had torn open. O’Keefe’s socks were red with blood. Ramirez hadn't been exaggerating.

Fucking replacements. Gene reached for his packets of sulfa powder. “Why didn't you show me this sooner?”

“...Didn't want to bother you.” O’Keefe avoided his eyes.

“I’m the platoon medic, I’m here to be bothered.” Gene twisted O’Keefe’s foot this way and that, surveying the damage, only for O’Keefe to yank his foot back.

“They’re fine,” he said, dragging on his bloody socks. “They’ll heal.”

A slow, heavy rock dropped through Gene’s gut. Confirmation, horror, resignation. He watched as O’Keefe stuffed his ragged feet back into his brand-new boots, and helpless, self-disgusted fury rose in him.

“If you don't let me treat those blisters,” he said, making each word deliberate and sharp, “then you _will_ bleed through your boots. You will rip through your skin until your boots are rubbing on bare tendon and bone, and they will get infected. When that happens, they will take you off the line, because a soldier cannot fight without his feet, and you will miss whatever is left of this Godforsaken war. Now you can wait for Mampre or Spina to take care of them, but we’re not due for a rendezvous until tomorrow night, and by then you’ll barely be able to walk. So the question, O’Keefe, is do you want to keep your feet or not?”

O’Keefe just stared at him.

Gene could barely hear over the pounding of his heartbeat. It was the worst possible scenario: one of his soldiers hurting themselves rather than seek treatment from him. It smarted like he'd been smacked in the face.

“Ramirez,” he said, suddenly so exhausted he could barely muster civility. “You know how to treat blisters?”

Ramirez looked up from the rations he was awkwardly picking at. “Yeah, Doc.”

Gene pulled his moleskin kit out of his bag and a handful of sulfa packets. “Make sure he doesn't turn himself into ground fucking _chicken_.”

“Yeah, Doc.”

He dropped the moleskin and sulfa by Ramirez as he passed, then kept walking until he was at the furthest edge of the line--still in sight, but far enough out that he could almost be alone. He settled himself against the bole of a shrapnel-scarred beech and stared into the middle distance.

They shouldn't have let him come back. Not to the same unit; maybe not at all. What good was a medic the men didn't trust with their hurts?

He found himself wishing for Babe, his cheerful irreverence and the warmth of his shoulder against Gene’s, and that made him feel worse. Three weeks of confronting how wrong those feelings were, and they _still_ persisted. Babe was his brother-in-arms, a man who was forced to depend on him in direst need for help, and Gene repaid him with… all that. Sexual regression, according to Dr. Meadowsweet. Who’s to say O’Keefe’s fears weren't unfounded, and that Gene wouldn’t prey on him, too?

He buried his face in his hands and breathed until the urge to cry went away.

* * *

Al Mampre, medic for 2nd Platoon, had a problem. It wasn’t precisely his problem; in fact, he could leave well enough alone and things would probably handle themselves, one way or another. His ass bounced on the stiff, ungrateful boards of the troop transport as Easy moved toward the Rhine, and he pondered what the hell to do with Gene Roe.

Strictly speaking, he should have been pondering what to do with Babe Heffron, since he was the one actually in Al’s platoon, but Al worked more closely with Gene, and. Well. Of the two of them, Gene was handling the situation worse.

Not that he was showing it. Gene Roe was one of the best medics Al had the privilege of working alongside, a genuinely compassionate, brave man. But he put all his energy into helping the men and saved none of it himself. The Army had taught Al a lot of things, some more useful than others, but it had taught him to read men like the labels on K-rations, and so when he saw Gene jump down from the lead truck to take a piss, Al took the opportunity for what it was: a chance to call Gene on his bullshit from the relative privacy of the roadside.

“Hold my seat for me,” he said to Smith, standing and bracing himself on the naked bows overhead.

“Where you going?”

“Gonna have a word with my fellow medic.”

Lesniewski followed his gaze forward and snorted. “Gonna get your cock sucked by the company queer, you mean.”

Al grabbed his ear, naked and vulnerable from a fresh haircut, and twisted. “We’re gonna talk shop about your syphilitic pecker, Les. Bad luck for you, we’re out of penicillin.”

Smith and Crosby hooted with laughter, both at Lesniewski’s hollering and at the threat. Everyone remembered the old treatments, and no one wanted to suffer them again. Al let go of Lesniewski’s ear. “How many times has Gene Roe patched your sorry ass back together when I wasn’t there? He deserves better than that, Les.”

Lesniewski had the grace to flush with embarrassment. “Sorry, Al,” he mumbled, rubbing at his ear.

“You didn’t insult _me_.” And with that, he jumped over the side of the tailgate, clearing out of the way of the truck behind and picking up a jog. The trucks kept a snail’s pace when there wasn’t an emergency. It was easy enough to outrun them, which was useful when you had to take a leak; there weren’t any rest stops on a military convoy.

“Heya, Gene,” Al half-yelled over the noise of the engines, clapping him on the shoulder as he was doing up his fly.

“Mampre,” Gene blurted, hunching forward in a reflexive move to protect his vitals. “What are you doing here?”

“Stopping to smell the flowers,” Al replied with a grin. The stink of diesel fumes and dust was omnipresent, blotting out the fresh green scents of a country spring.

Gene raised a brow at him, then went about cinching his belt.

He could be like that. Worse when he was pulling in on himself; those times, it took an injury or wound--or a direct question--to get him to talk. “How’s the company treating you?” Al asked.

Gene’s mouth tightened into a thin line. “I’m fine, Al.”

Al didn’t bother acknowledging that; he just touched Gene in the middle of his back, where he couldn’t see. Gene jumped like a startled hare.

“Fine, all right.” Al let it drop there, though, for the sake of the man’s pride. “You know, Sergeant Grant sat me down a couple days ago and asked me not to pass on any complaints the men might have about you to the medical corps?”

It was hard to tell under the dun coating of dust, but Gene went pale. “Why would he do that?”

“He was of the opinion that if any trouble happens, that it won’t be your fault, but the fault of those who can’t separate a man’s actions in a professional capacity from those done in privacy.”

That wasn’t exactly what Grant said, but it had been there in spirit.

Gene turned away, splotchy red overtaking the sickly gray. “No privacy in war.”

“Don’t I know it,” Al said. “The number of lovesick looks I’ve seen that idiot give you, it’s not to be believed.”

“Stop it, Mampre,” Gene snapped, the edge of his temper cutting into the words.

Al sighed. “Look, Gene. Everyone would have been much happier if you and Babe hadn’t gotten caught, but your sergeants are bending over backwards to make sure you don’t get blue tickets. Hell, you could probably do just about anything short of fucking in the middle of morning formation and they wouldn’t send you home.”

Gene was a dull, tomato red by the time Al finished. He didn’t say anything, just stuffed his hands in his pockets and made it clear without saying a word that he wanted to be anywhere but there.

“What I’m trying to say is,” Al said, as gently as he could, “you’re acting like you have a target on your back. And these guys, they’ve been trained to fire at targets. So maybe play a little at situation normal, and pretend you don’t feel like one.”

“Why the fuck do you care?” Gene’s tone was sharp, defensive. Al didn’t take it personally. He hesitated, then said aloud something he’d kept secret from everyone but God.

“My little brother’s like you. I caught him knocking boots with a local kid a few years back, not that they saw me.”

Al rubbed a hand over his mouth, uncertain how to verbalize feelings he’d been sitting on for nearly five years. “He--my brother’s a good kid. He enlisted this past November, volunteered for the Paratroops like me. I’ve known him since he was in diapers, and there’s not a mean bone in his body.”

Gene didn’t say anything, but Al could see him listening with every fiber of his being.

“And I know you, Gene, you’re the same. This, whatever it is, it doesn’t change your ability as a soldier, a medic, or as a human being. And…” He shrugged. “Humans thought the sun went ‘round the earth a couple hundred years ago, said that it was a moral crime to say otherwise. Only God knows what’s truly right or wrong; so long as a person isn’t hurting others, I don’t think we can or should judge.”

Gene looked away, his shoulders hunching in for a brief moment. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. The trucks rumbled by at their molasses crawl. Even at their slow pace, the troop trucks had left them behind, the supply trucks now keeping them company.

Finally, Gene spoke. “So, just take the target off, huh?”

“Yeah. Act like no one cares, and then maybe eventually they won’t.”

Gene nodded, looking at Al out of the corner of his eye. “Worth a shot.”

“That’s the spirit.” Al clapped him on the shoulder. “We better get a move on, before they leave us in the dust.” They broke into the ground-eating lope taught to them at Toccoa.

“How long have you been planning this ambush?” Gene said when they were even with the ammo wagon, and closing in on the first troop truck.

“Rollin’, rollin’, rollin’!” Al shouted instead of answering. “Oh, my feet are swollen! Don’t let your dingle dangle dangle in the mud! Pick up your dingle dangle, give it to your bud!”

Gene burst out laughing, almost tripping over his feet. Al steadied him without missing a beat. He didn’t miss, either, the way Babe Heffron’s head turned to watch them as they passed by.

Idiots, the both of them. Good soldiers, but dumber than a block of concrete.

By the time they got back to Al’s truck, the entire company had picked up the cadence, bellowing at the French countryside to pick up their dingle dangle and toss it all around. Al hauled himself back up his squad’s tailgate, flush with accomplishment and the glee of singing dirty songs at the top of his voice, to find Smith hadn’t saved his seat, the fucking turkey. Al had to crack a few heads and put the fear of God into some replacements.

All in all, not a bad outcome.

* * *

“Medic! We need a medic here!”

Adrenaline shot through Gene like a bullet. He was running before his mind caught up with his feet, muscle memory carrying him forward through the gunfire. It had been weeks since Mourmelon, weeks since crossing the border. Germany was soundly beaten; everywhere they went, soldiers were falling over themselves to surrender. Gene had even gotten himself a Luger, carefully unloaded and stowed in his medic bag. He didn’t have the first clue what he’d do with a German officer’s gun.

But then it happened, a storm on a clear summer’s day: a clot of SS holdouts dug into the high ground on a ridge over a bend in the road. Only the sun reflecting off one of their scopes, and Bull Randleman’s keen eye, had kept it from turning into a turkey shoot.

“Medic! _Medic_!”

“Out of the way!” Gene shouted, bounding through the undergrowth. The men cleared the way, rolling into thickets and pressing against tree trunks to make a path for him. Screams of pain drew him on, one hand steady on his bag, the other on his helmet as he ducked through the rain of bullets. All the tensions of the Company disappeared under fire. There was only staying alive, and Gene was there to make it happen.

He rounded a copse of trees and saw Lieutenant Welsh and Sergeant Talbert kneeling over a shock of red hair--

The world froze.

A line of bullets whizzed past, close enough to scorch the air, but Gene didn’t react. He was locked on the red hair, streaked with blood, lying on the ground between--

“--at’s an order, Roe! Get over here!”

The world snapped back into place, and Gene darted over to them, his heart in his throat.

It wasn’t Babe.

It wasn’t Babe, just a replacement with red hair. Gene almost fell over in dumbstruck relief, but he turned it into an awkward slump to his knees just in time. He dragged his medic bag forward. “Where’s he hit?”

“Head wound, right temple.” Harry pointed it out for him.

Gene reached for his lighter. “What do your friends call you, soldier?”

“G-Georgie,” he stuttered.

“I need you to look at my lighter,” Gene said, flicking it on. “Can you do that for me, Georgie? Don’t close your eyes, even if it hurts.”

“Yeah, Doc.”

One of his pupils was normal, but the other was dilated and fixed. “We need to get him out of here,” Gene said to Harry.

“Luz! Radio for a stretcher!”

Georgie started crying. “Am I gonna die?”

“No, you’re gonna be alright, Georgie,” Gene said, pulling out a bandage and a packet of sulfa. “You’re gonna be just fine, you hear me?” He ripped open the packet. “You two go on, I’ve got him here. Take those bastards out.”

Tab clapped him on the shoulder, and they were gone, the platoon streaming around on either side and disappearing into the woods surrounding the base of the ridge.

“Georgie, can you feel your fingers and toes?”

Gene led him through the questions as he fixed the bandage. He tied it off right as Spina broke through the tree cover, stretcher bearers in tow.

“Just the one?” Spina asked.

“So far,” Gene replied. “Glancing gunshot to the head, concussion, no sign of spinal injury. His name’s Georgie.”

They loaded him onto the stretcher, and just like that, it was only the two of them in the bullet-torn glade. Gene got through all of two breaths before the nausea hit him. He turned and vomited like a greenhorn into the bushes, shaking with sudden residual fear.

“Jesus, Gene! You alright?” Spina’s hand was light on his shoulder.

Gene sat back, sweating. He rinsed his mouth from his canteen and spat it out. He opened his eyes to see Spina crouched in front of him, worry creasing his face.

“He had red hair,” Gene said.

It took a moment for the penny to drop. Gene watched the expressions crawl across Spina’s face as it did, going from realization to disgust to dawning horror.

“Jesus,” he said again, wide-eyed and aghast. 

Gene breathed carefully and took small sips from his canteen until his heart stopped rabbiting.

“You never know if it’ll be him, do you,” Spina finally said, sitting next to him.

“Nope.”

Spina was quiet for a while. “My girl’s safe at home in Dallas,” he said. Then he was quiet again, the leaves rustling overhead and the distant _rat-tat-tat_ of gunfire the only sounds.

Gene was vaguely surprised he wasn’t more apprehensive. He’d spent the past week on tenterhooks, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Now it finally had, but all Gene cared about was the sun on his face and the cool earth under his ass. Maybe this was what it was like to be a condemned man.

“You know, I thought you were a coward, for not facing consequences,” Spina finally said. “But you’re really the bravest, unluckiest bastard of all of us.”

Gene snorted and held up his canteen in a mocking toast. “Laissez les bon temps rouler.”

Just like that, the tension was resolved. Gene didn’t think he and Spina would ever go back to what they were, but they were back to brothers-in-arms, and right then, that was all that mattered.

In the distance, almost swallowed by a mortar blast: “Medic!”

“I’ve got it,” Gene said, pushing himself up. He was already plunging through the trees before Spina had a chance to reply.

* * *

The skirmish was short-lived. The SS were underequipped, almost starving, and their morale hanging by a thread even before the Americans tore through their position. Six casualties, no deaths, and twelve German prisoners for Intelligence to poke at.

Gene had thought he’d processed the sudden new threat of Babe dying well enough. Compartmentalization was a survival skill on the front line, none moreso than for a medic, who saw and did things that no man should ever have to see or do. The wounded kid wasn’t Babe, end of story. And if they’d still been in Haguenau, it probably would have been; a brief shock, crushing relief, and suppression of any further thoughts of the future.

But Gene had spent a month analyzing the depths of his feelings for Babe Heffron, to himself if not always to the doctors, and another month after that trying to repress them as viciously as possible. So when the company reassembled in the after-action and Babe walked around one of the bullet-riddled trucks into Gene’s line of sight, Gene’s knees buckled under him. He grabbed the side of the cargo bed to keep from falling over.

The movement drew Babe’s attention. He took an instinctive, aborted step toward Gene before his gaze flicked up to Gene’s expression, then flicked around to see if anyone was watching.

“You okay?” he asked in a low, strangled voice.

Gene couldn’t breathe. Babe was here, solid and real standing two armlengths away, but life was so _fragile_ and there was sweet fuck-all Gene could do to stop it if God decided to tear Babe away before his time. He drank up the sight of him: his dark eyes, his freckles, his narrow, expressive face, the way his hair was rumpled and sweaty from his helmet, the smears of dirt across his knees and hands, the way his cuffs were ragged because he was always picking at them. He was beautiful, and for a single horrible moment, Gene had thought he was dead.

Babe took another tentative, desperate step closer. “Gene?”

Suddenly, Gene didn’t _care_ what the Army thought. He didn’t care what the men thought, he didn’t even care that the psychiatrists had called him inverted and a psychopath. He took three trembling steps forward and threw his arms around Babe, half crushing him, half clinging to him for support, cracking their helmets together. Air rushed back into his lungs.

“What--Gene, everyone can see!” Babe whispered harshly.

“I don’t care,” Gene replied, and he could feel himself shaking. “I don’t care, I don’t _care_\--”

Babe’s arms came up slowly around him. “Okay,” he said, like he was soothing a skittish stray. “You’re okay, Gene.”

“I thought you’d died. One of the replacements--he had red hair, I thought it was you, Babe--”

“...Shit.” Babe switched tacks, rubbing Gene’s back. “I’m okay, see, I’m right here, I’m fine.”

He smelled like sweat, crushed grass, and GSR. He was warm, his heartbeat strong against Gene’s chest. Gene didn’t want to ever let go.

But they’d been hugging for far too long already, and he forced himself to unwrap his arms. He felt cold when he did, his entire front chilled, his skin crying out for contact. It was the hardest thing he’d ever done, prying himself away from Babe when every fiber of his body screamed at him to meld their bodies so close together they could never be pried apart.

They hadn’t done anything any other soldiers didn’t do when finding their buddies had survived a battle. It was different, though, now that everyone knew. Their every gesture would be scrutinized for impropriety, and Gene, he didn’t have a lot of trust left in the goodwill of his fellow soldiers. They’d watch his back when the bullets started flying, sure, but when it came to this? Once bitten, twice fucking shy.

Over Babe’s shoulder, he saw Captain Speirs watching them. Not with any particular expression Gene could discern; the man was impassive on the best of days. He nodded to Gene when he saw he was watching, though, and conspicuously turned away.

“Gene?” Babe asked again.

Gene looked back at his worried face and clamped down on the urge to reach out for his hand. “Can I come see you tonight?”

Babe drew in a shaky breath, his eyes deep with longing and hesitation. “You sure?”

“Not a damn bit.” Gene bit the inside of his cheek and tried to convey through his eyes the sheer weight of emotion pouring through him. “But I don’t think I ever will be.”

“No idea where we’ll end up,” Babe cautioned. “I might end up bunking with someone.”

“We’ll cross that when we get there.” Gene clenched his hands to keep them to himself. “Need to say something to you.”

A bleak expression came over Babe's face, and Gene wished to hell they weren’t out in the middle of a field in southern Germany, surrounded by the whole goddamn 2nd Battalion, so that he could kiss it away.

“Not like that,” he said as loudly as he dared, which was barely above a whisper. “I was wrong, Babe, okay?” He gave in and took Babe’s hand. “Only it’s more than that, but I don’t want to risk saying it out in the open like this.”

Babe’s jaw clenched and he closed his eyes, and Gene was nearly floored at the expression in them when he opened them again. His fingers were tight around Gene's. “Okay. Tonight?”

The absurdity of planning a secret liaison in front of the troops--Ranney was dozing right there in the truck--struck Gene, and he was suddenly almost hysterical with the release of tension. “Yeah, I’ll even bring a corsage,” he giggled. “What flowers do you like?”

“Go the fuck to hell,” Babe replied, a wide, lopsided smile spreading across his face. “I want a dozen goddamn roses, you asshole, no substitutions.”

“White roses,” Ranney muttered. “Red’ll look bad with his hair.”

Gene almost bit off his tongue with how fast he closed his mouth.

“You can go to hell, too,” Babe replied, quick as a whip. “The fuck are you even awake for, Ranney?”

“You two fucks woke me up with your sweet nothings, don’t even have the fucking decency to let a guy sleep.”

“How about the fucking decency of my fist to your face--”

“You better be careful asking a medic to sleep,” Gene said over Babe’s threats. “I stocked up on morphine before we left Mourmelon.”

“Shit, Doc, would you? There’s a couple fairies right over there won’t stop talking--”

Babe reached over the truck slats to pound Ranney, but he rolled out of the way. Gene backed away, smiling broadly as he left them to it. He wandered out into the field where the rest of 2nd platoon was relaxing and slipped down next to Sergeant Malarkey, who was looking almost human again.

“Not a bad day,” he said, lighting up a cigarette.

Malarkey gave him a half-lidded, unimpressed look. “Sure.”

They sat together under the April sun and watched butterflies drift from flower to flower. 

* * *

“I was wrong,” Gene said again, his breath clouding in front of him in the spring chill of the German foothills.

Babe didn’t think of himself as the type to keep grudges, but he felt a little pulse of vindication at those words. He pushed it deep, and let cautious hope take over. He’d been dying in bits and pieces with Gene so close but out of reach, and if this was even the slightest chance of that changing…

“About what?” he asked, heart pounding.

They were in another bumfuck town with a name no one except the brass could pronounce, surrounded by fields and forests that were seemingly untouched by the war. 2nd platoon had been broken up over three houses along one of the secondary streets; 1st platoon was billeted a street over. Gene had come by as soon as dusk settled, asking around to find Babe’s squad’s house, and knocked on the door. Actually knocked, instead of barging right in, like any other member of Easy would have.

Babe didn’t especially care for the thought of being courted like a girl, but something hot and fluttering lit off in his chest at the thought of Gene nervously waiting for him.

There wasn’t much to do in an occupied town when they were moving out at 0800 the next morning, so Gene had asked if Babe would go for a walk with him, like they were in high school and their mothers were peering out through the curtains. Given the restrained curiosity in the eyes of the sentries they passed, maybe it wasn’t the worst comparison. They walked down the street, hands in their pockets and a careful foot of distance between them, and Babe tried not to feel awkward. He’d had Gene’s dick in his ass; he’d have thought they’d be past this stage.

They’d come upon an alley between houses, little more than a single car’s width, and without having to say anything, they’d both turned down it. It was the most privacy they’d had in… since Haguenau, probably. 

Gene spun his lighter around in his fingers, a nervous fidget Babe had never seen before. “I thought I could--go back to the way it was. Before.”

“I tried that for the three weeks they had you,” Babe replied. “I figured you weren’t coming back, so I tried to forget you.” He huffed a little laugh, mostly at himself. “Didn’t work too good.”

“No,” Gene said, finally looking at him properly instead of staring at his boots, his lighter, or the houses. “It didn’t.”

It was getting dark out, dark enough that Gene’s face was mostly shadows and silver outlines. His eyes were--Babe didn’t even know how to describe them, dark blue, so dark they usually looked black. They looked black, now, and Babe felt like he was fifteen again and asking Agnes Schuster to the school dance.

Babe tried not to think about the space between them. Gene kept it wide, even in the relative privacy of the alley. It gnawed at him, the knowledge of where his body ended and Gene’s began, and the insurmountable gap between them. He’d never been so aware of it before, never so hungry to bridge it and bring Gene close. 

“What--” Babe blurted before he had the time to second-guess himself. He swallowed. “What did the docs say?”

Gene stiffened slightly, then pulled out a cigarette. He didn’t say anything, but he didn’t tell Babe to fuck off, so Babe figured maybe he was just trying to figure out where to start.

“They said a lot.” He flipped open the lighter and lit up. He took a long pull; the sound of the cherry sizzling was overloud in the hushed fucking space between them, and the snap of the lighter lid was deafening. Gene huffed out the smoke. He was silent a moment longer, staring off down the street. “They said what I felt wasn’t real. That it was a symptom of psychosis.”

Babe let out a ragged breath. His entire body prickled with outrage, spoiling for a fight that wasn't going anywhere. “That’s bullshit,” he said, trying to keep his voice steady.

Gene glanced at him, and the uncertainty in his eyes hurt Babe in ways he didn’t have words for. Ways that made him want so badly to wrap Gene in his arms that his skin stung with it.

“It’s science,” Gene said, but that, too, was uncertain.

“Then science is bullshit,” Babe said stubbornly.

Gene looked away. “They said your feelings weren’t real either.” He brought the cigarette back to his lips, and Babe moved without really thinking about it, only knowing he had to prove those docs wrong. Gene barely had time to lower his hand before Babe was kissing him, cupping the back of his head and trying not to lose his mind at the soft press of Gene’s chapped lips against his own. Gene gasped, cigarette smoke trailing away between them; Babe sucked it into his own lungs, burning at the thought that it’d been inside Gene first. He wanted every part of Gene inside him, wanted to taste and feel him in every way that mattered. He wanted to wrap Gene inside his skin and never let the outside world make him doubt himself again.

“They don’t fucking know shit about what I feel,” Babe said against Gene’s lips in a cloud of shared smoke. Gene trembled against him. His hand knotted in Babe’s sleeve, pulling the fabric tight. The cigarette dropped to the pavement, forgotten.

“Babe,” he said, his voice low and rough. He threw his arms around Babe again, burying his face against Babe’s neck.

Babe held him, digging his fingers into his back. “I’m not letting you go again,” Babe said. “I fucking swear, they’ll have to kill me, first.”

Gene shuddered. He laid a small, searing kiss against Babe’s neck, his breath raising the hairs on the back of Babe’s neck. Then he pulled back, untangling his arms from Babe’s. Not as far apart as they’d put themselves on the street; they were still so close they were almost touching, so close that Babe could smell sulfa powder and boot polish wafting off Gene’s clothes. 

“So,” Babe said, shaky and near giddy and trying to keep a lid on it so he didn’t alert the sentries. “I can come around to the med tent again?”

Gene nodded, his expression cautious but his eyes bright. “If it’s your idea, yeah.”

Babe snorted. “Who else’s idea would it be, yours? You sent me off pretty quick, last time.”

Gene’s expression went taut. The hairs raised on the back of Babe’s neck, but this time for a completely different reason.

“Is that--did they say that?” _They said your feelings weren’t real, either._ “Did they fucking say you’d forced me to do something I didn’t want to?”

“It’s why they let you go so quickly,” Gene almost whispered, his voice cracking.

Babe stared at him, completely aghast. “That’s--For shit’s sake!” The only thing he could think to do was kiss Gene again, so he did, this time slower, taking his time, putting every trick he learned from Agnes to good use to make Gene shiver. If he could just kiss away Gene’s self-doubt, convince him that Babe was in charge of his own goddamn mind, that his feelings were real--

He didn’t know. He still didn’t know what he wanted, let alone what two queers from opposite ends of the country could have that wasn’t a pipe dream. But kissing Gene was familiar, and the best damn thing Babe had felt since the showers in Haguenau, so he did that, until his lips were hot and swollen and his cheeks raw from the scrape of Gene’s stubble.

Gene pulled away, gasping, to lay his forehead against Babe’s. A flush had crawled up his cheeks; Babe could see it even in the darkness of the alley. He was half hard in his pants, but he didn’t especially want to do anything about it. Just being close to Gene was enough.

“I’m my own man,” he said. “Those shrinks, they don’t know jack shit, alright?” He leaned forward to kiss Gene again. “And you’re pretty as a fuckin’ picture, Roe, but you’re not _that_ fuckin’ pretty.”

Gene snorted a laugh. “You’re a sweet-talker, Heffron.”

“You’re damn right, I am.” He looped an arm over the back of Gene’s shoulders, but the jocular front died a quick death in the face of the overwhelming tenderness that swamped him just looking at Gene. In that sense, he figured maybe the shrinks were right: Babe would do anything for him.

And that was enough to be getting on with.

“Why’d you change your mind?” he asked.

Gene glanced to his eyes, then dropped his eyes to Babe’s chin. “If you get shot,” he started, then stopped to swallow. “If you get shot, I don’t want--that to be it.” He reached for Babe’s free hand and twined their fingers together. His hand was so cold. He took in a deep, fortifying breath. “Heffron, life is too goddamn short and I don’t want to regret being too afraid to love you.”

Something in Babe’s chest lit on fire like a Roman candle, sending sparks through his whole body. “So you love me, huh?” he asked, shooting for smug but sounding more choked.

Gene just gave him a look. One of _those_ looks, the ones that made Babe quiver, though this time it was more fond than exasperated. Babe tightened his grip on his shoulders. 

“Eugene Roe,” he said quietly, into the hallowed darkness of an alley that smelled like chicken shit and moldy hay, “Would you go get a drink with me, the next time we’re in a town with any kind of bar?”

The corners of Gene’s mouth ticked up, and he shook their clasped hands. “You gonna buy me a drink?”

A thought occurred to Babe, and he said, “On one condition: that you give me your address back home.”

That line appeared between Gene’s brows, the one that meant he was confused. “Why?”

Babe swallowed. “When you were gone those three weeks, I thought they’d sent you back to the States. And I realized--I realized I didn’t have your address. If that was it, I wouldn’t even have been able to mail you a letter.” He tried for a smile. “I was planning on going to Baton Rouge after the war and digging up every Roe in the phone book.”

Gene’s eyes were soft, but his smile was wry. “We’re not in the phone book.”

“Not in the--Jesus Christ, now you _have_ to give me your address.”

“Sure, if you buy me a drink.”

Babe squinted at Gene in the dark, but the bastard was smiling. There was only one thing for it, really. Babe pressed him back against the wall and proceeded to kiss the moxie right out of him.

“I’ll buy you as many drinks as you fuckin’ want,” he said. Gene could have anything of Babe’s that he wanted, and Babe trusted him not to take it too far. They could figure out the rest as they went.

* * *

Jesus wept, they weren't even trying to hide it, anymore. Sitting right there in the cobbled-together service club staffed by DPs and supplied with rations meant for the German army. Christ, they kept _looking_ at each other, smug as kings, flouting every regulation of decency the Army had.

Cobb wasn't drunk yet, but watching those two faggots fawn over each other in the middle of his dinner made him wish he was. He gestured to the waiter to bring him another shot of the horsepiss Germans called liquor.

What was worse was the brass seemed inclined to let it happen. God, Winters, and even lowly Cobb knew they needed every man they had, but _those_ men? Those “men”?

The DP set Cobb’s shot down in front of him, and Cobb took a moment before throwing it back to be grateful that Roe and Heffron were bothering each other and leaving the rest of Easy alone. If there was a merciful God, that alone was proof.

“You're shitting me, right?”

The voice cut through Cobb’s brooding, and he looked up to see who'd spoken.

A replacement. Cobb didn't know his name, just that his face vaguely reminded him of Guarnere’s--not so much in actual shape, but in manner. Sociable. Outspoken. Ornery. No, _pugnacious_. Cobb had learned that word off of Webster the other day, and it kept rattling around in his mind, looking for a target. Here, he'd finally found one.

“What's got your panties in a bunch this time, Sheeney?” Suerth asked tiredly.

“This bullshit,” Sheeney answered, gesturing to Alley, who looked deeply regretful. “You’re telling me the 1st platoon medic got arrested for sodomy and they sent him _back_?”

“I _told_ you, the docs fixed him,” Alley said, with an air of tremendous... _discomposure_. “They didn’t just shrug and send him back, they--”

“What do a bunch of headshrinkers know?” Sheeney demanded. “Wishy-washy pricks too soft to become _real_ doctors. They’re probably as queer as that fruitcake, of course they let him go.”

His voice had been rising in volume the farther along in the rant he got, and by the end of it, the entire club had gone deathly silent.

There it was, the elephant in the room, dragged out for everyone to gawk over. Cobb would almost have been glad for it, if he hadn’t been so goddamn surprised.

Roe and Heffron, they were sitting off in the corner like they always did, but their smiles were gone, now. Cobb felt a little guilty about that, which pissed him off more than a little, because it wasn’t _his_ fault and for Christ’s sake, he didn’t even _like_ them.

It seemed like every eye in the club was looking between Sheeney and the company queers. Cobb snuck a glance at Tab, see what he thought of all this, see if he was going to step in, but his expression was more resigned exhaustion than forbidding schoolmaster. Cobb didn’t think Tab really liked being 1st Sergeant.

“Hey, you wanna say that again?” Heffron demanded, breaking the hush to answer the challenge. He didn’t have any other choice, really. Cobb grudgingly gave him points for rising to the occasion, and for looking angry rather than intimidated.

“Who the fuck are you?” Sheeney demanded, and Cobb shared an incredulous look with Luz, who was closest to him.

“Not the brightest motherfucker, is he,” Luz said under his breath.

Cobb snorted. Only, he did it too loudly, because it caught Sheeney’s attention, and no man did well when he thought he was being laughed at. So Cobb shrugged and spilled the beans.

“He’s Doc Roe’s lady-friend,” he said, and immediately regretted it, because every single person at the table--and everyone in the room--turned to stare at him. He sank lower in his seat. “Oh, come on,” he muttered.

Sheeney turned back to the knitting circle, emboldened by Cobb’s show of support. His face contorted. “Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ, you mean to tell me there’s _two_ of them in this fucking unit?”

Heffron, he wasn’t the broadest guy--a toothpick next to the likes of Buck, but better off than Roe, and better than a poke in the eye--anyway, he wasn’t too big, but he was a veteran, and he settled into his stance in a way that sent Cobb’s instincts flaring. “You got a problem with me and Gene, here?” he asked softly.

“Yeah, I got a fucking problem,” Sheeney said, too stupid to know when he was going toe-to-toe with a guy who could put him down in a single round. “I don’t think I like the idea of serving in this man’s army with a couple of shitpoke _pansies_.”

Heffron went red with fury at that. It was kind of funny how bad it clashed with his hair, but Cobb didn’t feel like laughing. He’d spent God knew how long bitching under his breath about Heffron and Roe, but now that it came down to it, he didn’t think he wanted this fight to happen after all.

Roe took that moment to step in, laying a hand on Heffron’s shoulder. “Babe, c’mon, ease back.”

Sheeney made a noise of disgust. “I’m not the only one hearing this, am I?” he demanded, turning to draw support from the onlookers. “What’s next, ‘dearest darling’?” 

“Babe’s my fucking _name_,” Heffron spat, almost vibrating, and Roe, he was whiter than a goddamn porcelain doll most of the time, but there was color high on his cheeks, now.

“You should make your parents take it back,” Sheeney snorted. “Did they know you’d come out queer, or was it a surprise?”

Babe lunged, but he was restrained by the quick action of Roe and Shifty.

Where were the fucking _sergeants_? Cobb looked to Tab again, and he still looked exhausted, but he was looking back at Cobb for some inexplicable, alarming reason.

“You don’t know a damn thing,” a new voice piped up, and Cobb almost fell out of his chair to see Vest standing up from the table of mortarmen he was sat with, now that the rest of the clerks wouldn't have him. “Doc Roe is the best medic Easy’s ever had!”

“All love to Mampre and Spina,” Luz said, but it was colored with the same dull surprise that was rendering Cobb near insensate.

“Didn’t he rat them out?” one of the other replacements, O’Malley or O’Rourke or something asked, confused.

Him and Cobb, both.

“Yeah,” Luz answered. “Busted ‘em right in the middle of the horizontal tango, if you get my drift.”

O’Connor went a bit green about the gills. Roe and Heffron though, they were staring at Vest, and they were both completely _gobsmacked_. Cobb had learned that one from Webster, too.

Sheeney had started getting that hunted look of a man who’d taken a risk only to find out his backup hadn’t followed. “Doesn’t matter how good of a medic he is,” he blustered. “I wouldn’t trust a fairy for a frontline medic, who knows when he’ll turn coward.”

That was it. The exact wrong thing to say. Even Cobb found himself bristling, and he mostly agreed with… some of what Sheeney was saying.

One by one, all of the Toccoa men stood. Cobb stood too, weaving a little to the side from the drink, but there was something bigger than his animosities going on: this was an assault on the honor of every Toccoa man who’d made it out and proved himself in battle.

“You’re going to want to stand down, now,” Malarkey said, firm and dangerously calm.

Sheeney looked around, desperate for some support. He finally landed on Cobb, and Cobb realized it was because his was the only voice that had been raised even in the vaguest show of agreement.

Cobb didn’t know that he liked that. He suddenly remembered how Roe had calmed him down when he’d been hit by flak on the jump into Normandy, and how he’d soothed his ruffled feathers afterwards, when they’d got back a month later, by checking his scars.

“Don’t fucking look at me,” he said, annoyed beyond belief that this complete idiot had made him defend a pair of men he didn’t even like. “They both fought in Bastogne. Where the fuck did _you_ fight?”

That was the last straw. Outnumbered, Sheeney pressed his lips into a narrow line and marched out of the club. The room seemed to sigh in his wake.

“Asshole,” Cobb muttered.

“Takes one to know one,” Luz replied. “Bet you a pack of cigarettes he applies for a transfer tomorrow.”

Roe had sat back in his chair, looking intently down at his lap; Heffron had laid a hand on his shoulder and was smiling at him. Then he dug out a dollar and handed it off to the DP, pointing at Vest. Shifty, still content to be tarred by the feather of their proximity, had folded his hands over his stomach and was beaming around the room like he’d personally saved Christmas. Unbelievable.

“I ain’t betting you shit,” Cobb spat, tearing his eyes away from Heffron and Roe. “You cheat.”

Luz snorted, grinning like the loon he was. “No, Cobb, you just can’t pick your fucking bets.”

Slowly, the service club settled back to normal. Slightly less slowly, Cobb got roaring drunk.

The fuck was the Army even coming to. Jesus Christ.

* * *

The shelling wasn’t much, after Bastogne. Half-hearted at best, and it almost never hit the target, if it had even been properly aimed in the first place. That was the best sign Gene had gotten that the Germans were about to cave. He stood in the Company CP and rolled spare bandages--an embarrassment of them, after what he was used to working with--and counted the seconds between shell hits like they were thunder and lightning. It sounded like they were going after the 3rd Battalion today. The ground shivered beneath his feet, but the windows in the burned-out warehouse they were stationed in didn’t so much as rattle.

“Think Jerry’s just about ready to throw the towel in,” Lieutenant Welsh said conversationally, rolling a pair of cigarettes between his fingers. It was just the two of them in the supply room; Speirs and Tab were in the office reviewing the maps Harry had collated, and everyone else was either on patrol or in their billets. Gene had been woken by nightmares, so he’d found his way here to make himself useful.

“Think you might be right,” he replied. He wondered what the Army would do with all the bandages he was wrapping when the war ended. What would happen to all the syrettes of morphine and atropine, where all the guns and grenades would go. “The end of the war” was a concept so enormous and foreign that it didn’t seem real; he was glad the logistics weren’t his problem.

“What are you gonna do, after?” 

Gene hadn’t let himself so much as think that question for the past nine months, since Normandy. Nine months of oppressive present, without hope or memory, and now, _What are you gonna do after?_ That didn’t seem real, either.

“Dunno. Hadn’t thought about it.”

Harry lit up one of his cigarettes. “Reckon you’ll go be a doctor?”

“_No_.” Gene said it so forcefully that Harry’s brows raised.

“No? But you’re a natural.”

Gene looked down at his hands. Chapped, the nails ragged, dirt and blood ground so deeply he couldn’t seem to wash it out. He suddenly understood what Renée had meant about the cruelty of a healer’s gift. The understanding was so profound and encompassing that he had to brace himself against the table. “I never want to see another wounded man again,” he said, with all the conviction his mortal body could hold.

Harry released a gust of bitter smoke into the air. “Fair enough.” He kept his tone light. “Me, I’m going to marry Kitty. It’s been, Jesus, five years, who even knows if she’ll have me. You’re invited, if you happen to find yourself in Pennsylvania.”

There was a knowing undertone to his words. Gene supposed he had more cause to visit Pennsylvania, these days, than he'd ever had before the war. He smiled a little to himself.

The door of the CP creaked open, the smell of rain-washed pavement wafting in with the draft. Gene looked up, and he was surprised to see O’Keefe, tiptoeing in like a squad of Hitler's finest were waiting to cap him if he so much as sneezed.

Harry dropped his boots to the floor. “What happened?”

“N-nothing, sir,” O’Keefe said, wide-eyed. “I just--” he glanced awkwardly to Gene.

Acid churned in the pit of Gene’s stomach. “I’ll go,” he said, tidying the bandages and repacking his medic bag.

“No! I mean--” O’Keefe cut himself off, and Gene looked up in confusion.

O’Keefe had turned bright red. “I cut my hand." He held it out for Gene to see.

It was a nasty-looking slice, clean through the webbing between his forefinger and thumb, and bleeding sluggishly. He looked back up to O’Keefe’s face.

“I’m sorry,” O’Keefe said.

“Don’t need to be sorry,” Gene said, mostly on reflex. “Let’s get you fixed up.”

Harry looked between the two of them, his forehead wrinkling. Gene ignored him, pulling out a sulfa packet and one of the smaller pressure bandages from the pile in front of him.

“You washed it?” he asked, taking O’Keefe’s wrist to get a closer look.

“Yeah, Doc. In treated water.”

“Good.” Gene ripped open the packet and poured the powder on.

O’Keefe winced. “Stings.”

“Means it’s working.” Gene applied the bandage as gently as he could. “You right-handed?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re lucky. I wouldn’t want to shoot a rifle with that on my dominant hand.”

“I don’t even have to,” O’Keefe volunteered. “All me’n Fens ever do is checkpoint patrols.”

“Then you’re extra lucky,” Harry piped up. “Once you have to fire it, you’ll never want to again.”

O’Keefe looked cowed before this wisdom from on high. “Yes, sir.”

Gene tied off the bandage. “There you go. Come back tomorrow for a fresh bandage, or if it gets wet or you bleed through this one. It should scab in a day or two, and it’ll get hot and swollen, but it’s not infected until the redness spreads or pus starts leaking out.”

O’Keefe turned his hand about to peer at the bandage, then looked up at Gene with a nervous smile. “Thanks, Doc.”

“It’s what I’m here for,” Gene said, and he didn’t even have to force the smile he gave in return.

Harry waited until the door had closed the door behind him before tilting his head back to squint at Gene. “The fuck was that about?”

“The man had a cut on his hand,” Gene answered, but he couldn’t help the grin that bubbled up from the welling happiness in his chest. 

“You don’t really look like an asshole from the outside, Roe.”

“I’m a paratrooper,” Gene said, and for the first time in almost two months, it felt true. “Comes with the territory.”

Harry snorted and went back to his cigarette. Gene went back to the bandages.

Outside, the war ground to an end. 

**Author's Note:**

> Anyway, if anyone is curious, y'know for NO PARTICULAR REASON, about gay and lesbian folk in WWII? I highly recommend _Coming Out Under Fire_. It's mad good. Thanks for reading!


End file.
